PARADOXES.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2189, 2 March 1881, Page 3

PARADOXES.

It is difficult to believe that tho biography of Dr. Johnson was written by a gossiping, literary bore. That Cowley, who boasts of so much gaiety, of tho versatility of his passion amongst so many sweethearts, wanted tho confidence even to address one.

That the thoughtful, cast-iron essays of John Foster were originally written as loveepistles to the lady who became his wife. That Byron would never help himself to salt at tho table, nor be helped himself. That the ode to temperance, “The Old Oaken Bucket,” was written by a journeyman printer under the inspiration of brandy. That so many of tho exquisite letters of Lady Mcntagu were destroyed by her mother, who “ did not approve that she should disgrace her family by adding to its literary honors. That Luther, the greatest of reformers, and Baxter, the greatest of the Puritans, and Wesley, the greatest religious leader of his century, believed in witchcraft. That Soott never saw “ Fair Melrose” by moonlight. (The truth was, Scott would not go there for fear of bogies ) That Napoleon, with a million armed men under his command, sat down in rage and affright to order Fouoh£ to send a little woman over the frontiers, lest she should say something about him to be laughed at in the drawing-rooms of Paris. That Lafontaine who, in his Fables, makes animals, trees, and stones talk, “ was_ in his conversation proverbially dull and stupid. That Soo: learned music and Plutarch Latin after they were seventy years old. That Baxter, the author of one hundred and sixty-eight 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 censorious professors do imagine,”