Rousseau tells us that he composed in bed at night, or else out of doors while walking, carefully recording his ideas in his brain, arranging and turning them many times until they satisfied him, and then he committed them to paper perfected. He said it was in vain for him to attempt to compose at a table surrounded by books and all the usual accessories of an author. Irving wrote most of the "Stout Gentleman" mounted on a stile at Stratford-on-Avon, while his friend Leslie, the painter, was engaged in taking sketches of the interesting locality. Jane Taylor, the English poetess and prose writer, began to produce creditable work at a very early age, and used at first to compose tales and dramas while whipping a top, committing them to paper at the close of that somewhat trivial exercise. As she grew older she said that she could find mental inspiration only from outdoor exercise. Petavius, the learned Jesuit, when composing his "Theologica Dogmata" and other works, would leave his table and pen at the end of every other hour to twirl his chair, first with one hand, then with the other, for ten minutes, by way of exercise. Cardinal Richelieu resorted to jumping in his garden, and in bad weather leaped over the chairs and tables indoors,--an exercise which seemed to have a special charm for him. Samuel Clark, the English philosopher and mathematician, adopted Richelieu's plan of exercise when tired of continuous writing. Pope says, with regard to exercise, "I, like a poor squirrel, am continually in motion, indeed, but it is only a cage of three feet: my little excursions are like those of a shopkeeper, who walks every day a mile or two before his own door, but minds his business all the while."