He never
wrote any part of his works with equal velocity. Three columns of the
Magazine, in an hour, was no uncommon effort, which was faster than most
persons could have transcribed that quantity.
'Of his friend Cave, he always spoke with great affection. "Yet (said
he,) Cave, (who never looked out of his window, but with a view to the
Gentleman's Magazine,) was a penurious pay-master; he would contract
for lines by the hundred, and expect the long hundred; but he was a good
man, and always delighted to have his friends at his table."
'He said at another time, three or four days only before his death,
speaking of the little fear he had of undergoing a chirurgical
operation, "I would give one of these legs for a year more of life, I
mean of comfortable life, not such as that which I now suffer;"--and
lamented much his inability to read during his hours of restlessness; "I
used formerly, (he added,) when sleepless in bed, to read like a Turk."
'Whilst confined by his last illness, it was his regular practice to
have the church-service read to him, by some attentive and friendly
Divine.
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