abundance of his own mind left him little indeed of adventitious
sentiments; his wit always could suggest what the occasion demanded.
He had read with critical eyes the important volume of human life,
and knew the heart of man, from the depths of stratagem to the
surface of affectation. What he knew he could easily communicate.
"This," says Steele, "was particular in this writer--that when he
had taken his resolution, or made his plan for what he designed to
write, he would walk about a room and dictate it into language with
as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down, and attend
to the coherence and grammar of what he dictated."

Pope, who can be less suspected of favouring his memory, declares
that he wrote very fluently, but was slow and scrupulous in
correcting; that many of his Spectators were written very fast, and
sent immediately to the press; and that it seemed to be for his
advantage not to have time for much revisal. "He would alter," says
Pope, "anything to please his friends before publication, but would
not re-touch his pieces afterwards; and I believe not one word of
Cato to which I made an objection was suffered to stand."

The last line of Cato is Pope's, having been originally written--

"And oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life."

Pope might have made more objections to the six concluding lines.
In the first couplet the words "from hence" are improper; and the
second line is taken from Dryden's Virgil. Of the next couplet, the
first verse, being included in the second, is therefore useless; and
in the third Discord is made to produce Strife.