Note 376 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 4)

Aubrey has minutely preserved for us the manner in which Hobbes composed his “Leviathan:” it is very curious for literary students. “He walked much, and contemplated; and he had in the head of his cane a pen and inkhorn, and carried always a note-book in his pocket; and as soon as a thought darted, he presently entered it into his book, or otherwise might have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into chapters, &c., and he knew whereabouts it would come in. Thus that book was made.”—Vol. ii. p. 607. Aubrey, the little Boswell of his day, has recorded another literary peculiarity, which some authors do not assuredly sufficiently use. Hobbes said that he sometimes would set his thoughts upon researching and contemplating, always with this proviso: “that he very much and deeply considered one thing at a time—for a week, or sometimes a fortnight.”