the late Professor Play fair. 129 



reasoning, and sentiment, and illustration, were enlarged and 

 new modelled in the course of it, and a naked outline became 

 gradually informed with life, colour, and expression. It was 

 not at all like the common finishing and polishing to which 

 careful authors generally subject the first draughts of their com- 

 positions, not even like the fastidious and tentative alterations 

 with which some more anxious writers essay their choicer pas- 

 sages. It was, in fact, the great filling in of the picture, the 

 working up of the figured weft on the naked and meagre woof 

 that had been stretched to receive it ; and the singular thing in 

 this case was, not only that he left this'most material part of his 

 work to be performed after the whole outline had been finished, 

 but that he could proceed with it to an indefinite extent, and 

 enrich and improve as long as he thought fit, without any risk 

 either of destroying the proportions of that outline, or injuring 

 the harmony and unity of the design. He was perfectly aware, 

 too, of the possession of this extraordinary power, and it was 

 partly, we presume, in consequence of it, that he was not only at 

 all times ready to go on with any work in which he was engaged, 

 without waiting for favourable moments or hours of greater 

 alacrity, but that he never felt any of those doubts and misgiv- 

 ings as to his being able to get creditably through with his un- 

 dertaking, to which, we believe, most authors are Occasionally 

 liable. As he never wrote upon any subject of which he was 

 not perfectly master, he was secure against all blunders in the 

 substance of what he had to say, and felt quite assured, that if 

 he was only allowed time enough, he should finally come to 

 say it in the very best way of which he was capable. He 

 had no anxiety, therefore, either in undertaking or proceeding 

 with iiis tasks, and intermitted and resumed them at liis conve- 

 nience, with the comfortable certainty that all the time he be- 

 stowed on them was turned to good account, and that what was 

 left imperfect at one sitting, might be finished with equal ease 

 and advantage at another. Being thus perfectly sure both of his 

 ends and his means, he experienced in the course of his com- 

 positions none of tiiat little fever of the spirits with which that 

 operation is so apt to be accompanied. He had no capricious 

 Vol.. VHI. " K 



