PARADOXES.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 7 March 1881, Page 2

PARADOXES.

It is difficult to believe (bat the. biography of Dr Johnson was written by 8 gossiping, literary bore. That Cowley, who boasts of so much, gaiety, of the versatility of his passion amongst so many sweethearts, wanted the confidence even to address one. That the thoughtful, cast-iron essays of John Foster were originally written as love*epistles to the lady who became his wife. That Byron would never help himself to salt at the table, nor be helped him* self. That the ode to temperance. *' Tb# " Olft t3i%ertacßetr by IT journeyman printer nnder the inspiration of brandy. That so many of the exquisite letters of Lady Montagu were destroyed by her mother, who " did not approve that she should disgrace her family by add* ing to its literary honors," That Luther, the greatest of reformers, and Baxter, the greatest of the Puritans, and Wesley, the greatest religions leader of his century, belieyed io witchcraft. That Schiller wrote his William Tell without ever having seen the glories of ' Lake Lucerne. That Scott never saw " Fair Melrose " by moonlight, (The troth was, Scott ' would not go there for fear of bogies.) That Napoleon, with a million armed men under bis command, sat down in rage and affright to order Foncbe to send a littlo woman over the frontiers, lest she should say something about him. to be laughed at in the drawing-rooms of Paris, That Lafonfaine who, in his Fables, makes animals, trees, and stones talk, M was in his conversation proverbially dull and stupid." That Socrates learned music and Plutarch Latin after they were seventy ye«r« old. That Baxter, the author of one hundred and sixty«eighfc works upon theology, wrote at the end of his life : " I see that good men are not so good as I once thought they were, and I find that few are so bad as malicious enemies or cen« sorious professors do imagine."