“... I prepared myself for composition in a very different mood from that in which I had poured forth my fervid crudities in the Garden-house. Calm and collected, I constructed characters on philosophical principles, and mused over a chain of action which should develop the system of our existence. All was art. I studied contrasts and grouping, and metaphysical analysis was substituted for anatomical delineation. I was not satisfied that the conduct of my creatures should be influenced merely by the general principles of their being; I resolved that they should be the very impersonations of the moods and passions of our mind. _One was ill-regulated will;[179] another offered the formation of a moral being_;[180] materialism sparkled in the wild gaiety and reckless caprice of one voluptuous girl, while spirit was vindicated in the deep devotion of a constant and enthusiastic heroine.[181] Even the lighter temperaments were not forgotten. Frivolity smiled and shrugged her shoulders before us, and there was even a deep personification of cynic humour.” He believed in the influence of the creative arts on creative authorship. He has pointed out how the Tuscan school of painting trains to the grandeur of simplicity, the Venetian to the gorgeousness of fancy. And of music he has written: “The greatest advantage that a writer can derive from it is that it teaches most exquisitely the art of development. It is in remarking the varying recurrence of a great composer to the same theme, that a poet may learn how to dwell upon the phases of a passion,--how to exhibit a mood of mind under all its alterations, and gradually to pour forth the full tide of feeling.” But he thought that such influences were a prelude to creation, not to execution. “It is well to meditate upon a subject under the influence of music, but to execute we should be alone, and supported only by our essential and internal strength.” As is familiar, he was fastidious even when he was florid. It is well known that he relieved his last illness by correcting the proofs of his last speeches for Hansard--“the Dunciad of Politics.” “I will not,” he said, “descend to history speaking bad grammar.” About national literature he held views which sprang from his theories of race. He considered that modern Europe depended overmuch on ideas derived from Rome, Greece, and Palestine. “At the revival of letters we beheld the portentous spectacle of national poets communicating their inventions in an exotic form.... They sought variety in increased artifice of diction, and substituted the barbaric clash of rhyme for the melody of the lyre....” Spain, he thought, offered the best field for a national novel. “The outdoor life of the natives induces a variety of the most picturesque manners, while their semi-civilisation makes each district retain with barbarous jealousy its peculiar customs.”