FAMOUS BACHELORS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 5 June 1914, Page 2

FAMOUS BACHELORS.

NOTABLE MEN WHO WOULD NOT MARRY. It has often been said that there are two kinds of husbands difficult to live with—the genius and the fool. And the chances of happiness are greater with the fool ! Thus we find many of our great and notable men either making their choice very carefully or never marrying at all. Michael Angelo is reported to have said, "I have espoused my art ; and it occasions me sufficient domestic cares, for my works are my children." Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter, would never marry for fear he might be withdrawn from his studies. Angelica Kaullman and he used to paint each other's portraits, and this was sufficient for society to couple their names together. So, too, the late Lord Leighton told the Princess of Wales, who, with the Prince, was inspecting the artist's pictures, that he had never , married because he could not find sufficient time to devote to a wife. Sir Isaac Newton once went wooing, and began to smoke, and, in absence of mind, attempted to use the forefinger of'the lady as a pipe- | stopper. This unfortunate act brought his courtship to an abrupt i termination, and he never had an- j other. j It was for a not less trifling reason, as most people would thfok, that Beau RrHmmell broke off his engagement to marry. When asked why, "What could I do, my dear fellow," he replied, "but cut the connection ? I discovered that Lady Mary actually ate cabbage." A HINT NOT TAKEN. Cowper loved his first cousin and she loved him, but her father forbade the marriage on account of the relationship. It is said that this disappointment was what first deranged the poet's mind. The lady remained constant to him, preserving with tender care all the love poems he had written to her under the name of Delia. Throughout the whole of his life he never seriously thought of marrying after his first misfortune with his cousin. The " Jessamy Bride" was the friend, but not the sweetheart of Goldsmith. He never married, though on one occasion he was with difficulty dissuaded from uniting himself to a needlewoman whom he wished to oblige. John Berridge was not so goodnatured, for he would not enter the holy state even to oblige a rich lady. She wrote to him that it had been revealed to her that she sh;ould marry him. Berridge replied that if thite were the case the Lord would have made a similar revelation to him, and that, on the contrary, he had been distinctly warned not to