“Being now restored to the sunshine of prosperity, she dedicated her time to writing poems, philosophical discourses, orations and plays. She was of a generous turn of mind, and kept a great many young ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, and were ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory. The young ladies, no doubt, often dreaded her Grace’s conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind.”
[Footnote 170: _Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland_, ed. 1755, vol. II, p. 164.]
She herself gives the following long-winded description of the speed at which her mighty brain kept turning out matter for “copy,” and what is given here is a mere fragment of a sentence of miraculous length.
“... the brain being quicker in creating than the hand in writing, or the memory in retaining, many fancies are lost, by reason they ofttimes outrun the pen; where I, to keep speed in the Race, write so fast as I stay not so long as to write my letters plain, insomuch as some have taken my hand-writing for some strange character, and being accustomed so to do, I cannot now write very plain, when I strive to write my best; indeed, my ordinary hand-writing is so bad as few can read it, so as to write it fair for the Press, but however, that little wit I have, it delights me to scribble it out, and disperse it about, for I being addicted from my childhood to contemplation rather than conversation, to solitariness rather than society, to melancholy rather than mirth, to write with the pen than to work with a needle, passing my time with harmeless fancies, their company being pleasing, their conversation innocent, in which I take such pleasure, as I neglect my health, for it is as great a grief to leave their society, as a joy to be in their company, my only trouble is, lest my brain should grow barren, or that the root of my fancies should become insipid, withering into a dull stupidity for want of maturing subjects to write on,” and so on, and so on!
The account given above by Cibber of the young ladies who “slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory,” arouses our deepest sympathy. Imagine what it would be to be awakened by her Grace’s bell from a deep slumber to write down one or other of the following platitudinous “conceptions” taken at hazard from one of her books:—