1850-51 HOW GREAT MEN COMPOSE 361 



take Mr. Pickersgill to the Gardens. This was his 

 first visit there. ' His art,' he said, ' had never given 

 him time before.' This morning Mr. William 

 Cooper performed the operation for cataract on a 

 young grizzly bear. He performed this operation 

 once before on a young bear, who quite recovered. 

 Several zoologists to witness it.' 



'December 16. — Author of " Orion," Mr. 

 Home, here. He told me he did not write the 

 "Raven" papers in "Household Words." They 

 are Dickens's own. Mr. H. wrote the " Zoological 

 Meeting." He said Dickens's papers were some- 

 times mistaken for his, and vice versa! 



'December 20. — R. gone to T. Carlyle's, whom 

 we had asked to come to dinner. T. C. had 

 written to say he was too dyspeptic to venture out 

 at present, and begged R. to go over there. They 

 have been corresponding this week.' 



At a meeting of the Literary Club this month, 

 Owen met Southey and Smirke, R.A., among 

 others, and gives in a letter to his sisters an ac- 

 count of the conversation, which turned on the 

 circumstances in which men compose and write. 

 1 The Bishop [of Lichfield] said he always found 

 it easiest whilst walking about in the open air, and 

 that he used to do his verses at Eton always in 

 " Poets' Walk," and write them down when he re- 

 turned. Mr. Walpole said that that was the way in 

 which Macaulay composed, and that he had met 

 him after midnight going through Temple Bar ; 



