When GOLDONI found his sleep disturbed by the obtrusive ideas still floating from the studies of the day, he contrived to lull himself to rest by conning in his mind a vocabulary of the Venetian dialect, translating some word into Tuscan and French; which being a very uninteresting occupation, at the third or fourth version this recipe never failed.

This was an art of withdrawing attention from the greater to the less emotion; by which, as the interest weakened, the excitement ceased.

MENDELSSOHN, whose feeble and too sensitive frame was often reduced to the last stage of suffering by intellectual exertion, when engaged in any point of difficulty, would in an instant contrive a perfect cessation from thinking, by mechanically going to the window, and counting the tiles upon the roof of his neighbour's house.

Such facts show how much art may be concerned in the government of our thoughts.
It is an unquestionable fact that some profound thinkers cannot pursue their intellectual operations amidst the distractions of light and noise.
With them, attention to what is passing within is interrupted by the discordant impressions from objects pressing and obtruding on the external senses.

There are indeed instances, as in the case of Priestley and others, of authors who have pursued their literary works amidst conversation and their family; but such minds are not the most original thinkers, and the most refined writers; or their subjects are of a nature which requires little more than judgment and diligence.