1850-51 HOW GREAT MEN COMPOSE 36' 
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. 
Horne, 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. 
‘ 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 was the way in 
which Macaulay composed, and that he had met 
him after midnight going through Temple Bar ; 
