occupation soon became burdensome and injurious to me; burdensome, because I was perpetually obliged, by invitations which could not be refused, to task myself every day, and sometimes twice a day,--now to gratify some lady's whim, now to satisfy the curiosity of some high-born fool, and now to fill up a blank in some grand assembly,--losing thus miserably the greater part of the time necessary for my studies. It was injurious, because my weak and uncertain health suffered. It was perceptible to every one that the agitation attendant on this exercise of the mind, used to inflame my countenance and heat my head, while my hands and extremities became icy cold. Gravina consequently exerted his authority to prohibit me from making extempore verses,--a prohibition which, from the age of sixteen, I have never infringed, and to which I believe that I owe the remnant of reasonable and connected ideas that are to be found in my waitings." He goes on to state the evils that result to the intellect perpetually bent on so exciting a proceeding; when the poet, instead of selecting and arranging his thoughts, and then using measure and rhyme as obedient executors of his designs, is obliged to employ the small time allowed him in collecting words, in which he afterwards clothes the ideas best fitted to these words, even though foreign to his theme: thus the former seeks at his ease for a dress fitted to his subject; while the latter, in haste and disturbance, must find a subject fitted to his dress.