Is there anything more curious or remarkable in fiction than the simple fact expressed by Thucydides, that ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved? or that by Thomas Fuller, that learning has gained most by those books by which the printers have lost? or that by Pascal, that it is wonderful a thing so obvious as the vanity of the world is so little known, and that it is a strange and surprising thing to say that seeking its honors is a folly? or that by John Selden, that of all actions of a man's life his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all actions of his life 'tis most meddled with by other people? or that by Goldsmith, that the most delicate friendships are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, and the strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest regard? or that by Hazlitt, that every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of humanity? or that by Emerson, that the astonishment of life is the absence of any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and practice of life? or that by Foster, that millions of human beings are at this very hour acting in violation of the laws of goodness, while those laws are clearly admitted, not only as impositions of moral authority but as the vital principles of their own true self-interest? or that by Prescott, that in every country the most fiendish passions of the human heart are those kindled in the name of religion? Strange! that labor is so scarce in China that vast tracts of land lie waste because there are no laborers to reclaim them. That in the pontifical army, not long before Victor Emanuel, Spain—"the bones of whose children for centuries had whitened every battle-field where she found it necessary to defend her religion"—was represented by but thirty-eight soldiers, while Holland—"which protected the Reformation by its Princes of Orange, and introduced liberty of religious opinion into the modern world"—was represented by hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. That the best building in Iceland is the jail at Reikiavik, which, during the many years since its erection, has never contained a prisoner. That in the Arctic region a smaller proportion of fuel is consumed than in any other habitable part of the globe. That the next use of the Mayflower, after carrying the Pilgrims, was to transport a cargo of slaves to the West Indies. That the plant papyrus, which gave its name to our word paper—first used for writing between three and four thousand years ago—of more importance in history than cotton and silver and gold—once so common in Egypt—has become so scarce there that Emerson in his late visit searched in vain for it. That house-building, which ought to be among the most perfect of the arts, after the experience and efforts of myriads in every generation, has produced no stereotyped models of taste and convenience. That the founder and editor of one of the great London periodicals never wrote a line for his journal; and when he died, the review which he had built up by his individual ability made not the slightest mention of the event. That the three books which have been so widely read, and which have exercised incalculable influence upon morals and politics,—The Imitation of Christ, The Whole Duty of Man, and the Letters of Junius,—are of unknown or disputed authorship. That the Bible,—incomparably the wisest and best book, the Book of books, the guide of life, the solace in death, the way to heaven,—is so little read by the many and so little understood by the few. That the one subject (religion) which is "by general consent proscribed in general society is that which by general consent is allowed to be the most important, and which one might therefore suppose to be the most interesting." That the brain, in subordination to the mind, the physical centre of all sensation, is insensible to the wounds which are torture to the skin, and which wounds the brain alone enables us to feel. ("It is as insensible," says Sir Charles Bell, "as the leather of our shoe, and a piece may be cut off without interrupting the patient in the sentence that he is uttering.") That the heart, to which we refer our joys, our sorrows, and our affections, when grasped with the fingers, gives no information of the fact to the possessor, unmistakably responding at the same time to the varied emotions of his mind. (The famous Dr. Harvey examined, at the request of Charles I., a nobleman of the Montgomery family, who, in consequence of an abscess, had a fistulous opening into the chest, through which the heart could be seen and handled. The great physiologist was astonished to find it insensible. "I then brought him," he says, "to the king that he might behold and touch so extraordinary a thing, and that he might perceive, as I did, that when he touched the outer skin, or when he saw our fingers in the cavity, this young nobleman knew not that we touched the heart.") That one of our modern English poets, who has written lyrics so passionate as to be hounded down for their immorality, has so lived, according to a fellow-poet, as never to have kissed any one but his mother. That the one man who can read the Eliot Bible is getting tired of his distinction, just as a veteran poet, it is declared, hated to hear praised one of the productions of his youth, at eighty not having surpassed, in popular estimation, a school-boy poem, written at eighteen. That the man whom Walter consulted in the management of the Times newspaper, and who in Walter's absence, according to Robinson, decided in the dernier resort, was at the time, and until the end of his life, an inhabitant of the King's Bench Prison, and when he frequented Printing House Square it was only by virtue of a day rule. (Combe was his name: Old Combe, as he was familiarly called. He was the author of the famous Letters of a Nobleman to his Son, generally ascribed to Lord Lyttelton. He was a man of fortune when young, and traveled in Europe, and even made a journey with Sterne. Walter offered to release him from prison by paying his debts. This he would not permit, as he did not acknowledge the equity of the claim for which he suffered imprisonment. He preferred living on an allowance from Walter, and was, he said, perfectly happy.) How difficult it is to realize that Dr. Johnson, the great Cham of English literature, spent more than one half of his days in penury; that the "moral, pious Johnson," and the "gay, dissipated Beauclerc," were companions; that they ever spent a whole day together, "half-seas over," strolling through the markets, cracking jokes with the fruit and fish women, on their way to Billingsgate. It is hard to believe that that great moralist ever wandered whole nights through the streets of London, with the unfortunate, gifted Savage, too miserably poor to hire lodgings. And it is still harder to believe that the best biography of that great man, and the best biography in our language, was written by a gossiping, literary bore—the "bear-leader to the Ursa Major," as Irving calls him—whom Johnson pretended to despise, and of whom he once said, "if he thought Boswell intended to write his (Johnson's) life he would take Boswell's." We wonder that the great, strong-minded Luther ever flung an inkstand at the devil's head. We cannot conceive that Wesley and Johnson and Addison believed in ghosts. It looks strange to us that Socrates, who taught the doctrines of the one Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul, bowed down to a multiplicity of idols; and after he had swallowed the fatal hemlock, directed the sacrifice of a cock to Æsculapius. We cannot credit the fact that Marlborough, at the moment he was the terror of France and the glory of Germany, was held under the finger of his wife by the meanest of passions, avarice. We utterly refuse to believe the complaint of Burns, the greatest of lyric poets, that he "could never get the art of commanding respect." It seems incredible that Goldsmith ever "talked like poor Poll," when he "wrote like an angel." It appears strange enough that Sir George Mackenzie wrote an elegant and eloquent treatise in favor of solitude, while living a most active life; and still more strange that his arguments were triumphantly answered by Evelyn, who passed his days in tranquillity and solitude. We only believe when we are compelled by authority, that Tycho Brahe changed color, and his legs shook under him, on meeting with a hare or a fox. That Dr. Johnson would never enter a room with his left foot foremost. That CÆsar Augustus was almost convulsed by the sound of thunder, and always wanted to get into a cellar, or under-ground, to escape the dreadful noise. That Talleyrand trembled when the word death was pronounced. That Marshal Saxe ever screamed in terror at the sight of a cat. That the smell of fish sent Erasmus into a fever. That Scaliger shivered at the sight of water-cress. That Boyle was convulsed at the falling of water from a tap. That Peter the Great could never be persuaded to cross a bridge; and though he tried to master the terror, he failed to do so. That Byron would never help any one to salt at the table, nor be helped himself. That an air that was beneficial to Schiller acted upon Goethe like poison. ("I called on him one day," said Goethe to Soret, "and as I did not find him at home, and his wife told me that he would soon return, I seated myself at his work-table to note down various matters. I had not been seated long before I felt a strange indisposition steal over me, which gradually increased, until at last I nearly fainted. At first I did not know to what cause I should ascribe this wretched and, to me, unusual state, until I discovered that a dreadful odor issued from a drawer near me. When I opened it, I found to my astonishment that it was full of rotten apples. I immediately went to the window and inhaled the fresh air, by which I felt myself instantly restored. In the meantime his wife had reËntered, and told me that the drawer was always filled with rotten apples, because the scent was beneficial to Schiller, and he could not live or work without it.") That Queen Elizabeth issued proclamations against excessive apparel, leaving three thousand changes of dress in the royal wardrobe. That Bayle, the faithful compiler of impurities, "resisted the corruption of the senses as much as Newton." That Smollett, who has so grossly offended decency in his novels, had an immaculate private character. That Cowley, who boasts with so much gayety of the versatility of his passion amongst so many sweethearts, wanted the confidence even to address one. That Seneca philosophized so wisely and eloquently upon the blessings of poverty and moderate desires, while usuriously lending his seven millions, and writing his homilies on a table of solid gold. That Sir Thomas More, who, in his Utopia, declares that no man should be punished for his religion, was a fierce persecutor, racking and burning men at the stake for heresy. That Young, the author of the sombre Night Thoughts, was known as the gayest of his circle of acquaintance. That MoliÈre, the famous French humorist and writer of comedies, bore himself with habitual seriousness and melancholy. That he married an actress, who made him experience all those bitter disgusts and embarrassments which he himself played off at the theatre. That the cynicism and bitterness exhibited in the writings of Rousseau were in consequence of an unfortunate marriage to an ill-bred, illiterate woman, who ruled him as with a rod of iron. That Addison's fine taste in morals and in life could suffer the ambition of a courtier to prevail with himself to seek a countess, who drove him contemptuously into solitude and shortened his days. That the impulsive and genial Steele married a cold, precise Miss Prue, as he called her, from whom he never parted without bickerings. That Shenstone, while surrounding himself with the floral beauties of Paradise, exciting the envy and admiration and imitation of persons of taste throughout England, lived in utter wretchedness and misery. That Swift, with all his resources of wit and wisdom, died, to use his own language, "in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." That the thoughtful, cast-iron essays of John Foster were originally written as love epistles to the lady who became his wife. That the only person who could make George Washington laugh was an officer in the army so obscure in rank and character as not to be even mentioned in popular history. That the man whom Daniel Webster pronounced the best conversationalist he ever knew, is now unknown or forgotten outside of his neighborhood. That the pious Cowper attempted suicide; and had as intimate associate the swearing Lord Chancellor Thurlow,—with whom, he confesses, he spent three years, "giggling and making giggle." That Lord Chancellor Eldon, who, while simple John Scott, son of a Newcastle coal-fitter, ran away with Bessy Surtees, daughter of a prosperous banker of the same town, and who was so proud of the exploit that he never tired of referring to it, when his eldest daughter, Lady Elizabeth, gave her hand, without his consent, to an ardent lover of respectable character and good education, but not of much wealth, permitted years to roll away before he would forgive her. That not long after the elopement referred to, while a law student at Oxford, having been appointed to read to the class at a small salary, the lectures of one of the professors who was then absent in the East Indies, it happened that the first lecture he had to read was upon the statute (4 & 5 P. & M. c. 8) "Of young men running away with maidens." ("Fancy me," he said, "reading, with a hundred and forty boys and young men all giggling.") That Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who was never married at all, was so outraged at the love marriage, against his consent, of his third and favorite daughter, that though he became reconciled to her, he never would consent to see her husband. That, according to John Lord Campbell, so many of the most important points in the law of real property have been settled in suits upon the construction of the wills of eminent judges. That "the religious, the moral, the immaculate" Sir Matthew Hale, when chief justice of the king's bench, allowed the infamous Jeffreys, who "was not redeemed from his vices by one single solid virtue," to gain, in the opinion of Roger North, "as great an ascendant over him as ever counsel had over a judge." That the gentle Charles and Mary Lamb were confined in a mad-house, and that the latter cut the throat of her mother at the dinner-table. That Tasso lamented the publication of Jerusalem Delivered, and that its publication was the one great cause of his insanity. That Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, composed so much of his classic and vigorous verse in bed; or was seen in Lord Burlington's garden, with his hands in his waistcoat pockets, biting off the sunny sides of the peaches. That King Solomon, who wrote so wisely of training children, had so wicked a son as Rehoboam. That the good stoic, Marcus Aurelius, of proverbial purity, had so doubtful a wife as Faustina, and so vicious a son as Commodus. That that good old Roman emperor, whose Meditations rank with the best works of the greatest moralists, breathing and inculcating the spirit of Christianity, was the bitter persecutor of the Christians in Gaul. That his graceless heir, Commodus, left the Christians wholly untroubled, through the influence of his mistress Marcia. That the English-reading world is directly indebted to the Reign of Terror—the horrors of Robespierre's tyranny—for the most popular translation of St. Pierre's sweet story of Paul and Virginia. That the author of the Marseillaise first heard of the great fame of his piece in the mountains of Piedmont, when fleeing from France as a political refugee; and upon the return of the Bourbons to power wrote an anthem which is characterized as the most anti-republican ever penned. That that ode to temperance, The Old Oaken Bucket, was written by Woodworth, a journeyman printer, under the inspiration of brandy. That so many of the exquisite letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu were destroyed by her mother, who "did not approve that she should disgrace her family by adding to it literary honors." That the famous speech of Pitt, in reply to Walpole's taunt of being "a young man," was composed by Dr. Johnson. That Johnson, looking at Dilly's edition of Lord Chesterfield's miscellaneous works, laughed and said, "Here are now two speeches ascribed to him, both of which were written by me: and the best of it is, they have found out that one is like Demosthenes, and the other like Cicero." That many of the sermons of famous contemporaneous clergymen were the productions of the same laborious Grub Street drudge, forty or more of which have been reclaimed and published, and conceded to have been written by the inexhaustible Johnson. That the only paper of The Rambler which had a prosperous sale, and may be said to have been popular, was one which Johnson did not write—No. 97, written by Richardson. That the essays of The Rambler, elaborate as they appear, were written rapidly, seldom undergoing revision, whilst the simple language of Rousseau, which seems to come flowing from the heart, was the slow production of painful toil, pausing on every word, and balancing every sentence. That Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, which has the free and easy flow of extemporaneous eloquence, was polished with extraordinary care,—more than a dozen proofs being worked off and destroyed, according to Dodsley's account, before he could please himself. That the winged passages in Curran's speeches, which seem born of the moment, were the results of painstaking, protracted labor. ("My dear fellow," said he to Phillips, "the day of inspiration has gone by. Everything I ever said which was worth remembering, my de bene esses, my white horses, as I call them, were all carefully prepared.") That the Essay on Man, according to Lord Bathurst, "was originally composed by Lord Bolingbroke, in prose, and Pope did no more than to put it into verse." That those brilliant wits and prolific dramatists, Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, the associates of Shakespeare, to whom the great dramatist was so much indebted, were all wretched and unsuccessful,—the first dying in utter want, the second of excessive pickled herring, at the point nearly of starvation, the third being stabbed in the head in a drunken brawl at a tavern by his own dagger in his own hand. That Shakespeare married at eighteen, had three children at twenty, removed to London at twenty-three, begun writing plays at twenty-seven, and, a little more than twenty years after, returned to his native town, rich and immortal. That but a few signatures—differently spelled—is all of his handwriting that has been preserved. That so many critics should believe, and some ingenious books have been printed to prove, that the authorship of the plays of Shakespeare belongs to Bacon—the only man then living, they claim, who knew enough to write them. That the great Bacon was unable to grasp the great discoveries of his time—rejecting the Copernican system to the last, and treating not only with incredulity, but with the most arrogant contempt, the important discoveries of Gilbert about the magnet. That Apuleius, author of the Metamorphosis of the Golden Ass (a paraphrase, according to Bayle, of what he had taken from Lucian, as Lucian had taken it from Lucius, one of the episodes of which—Psyche—furnished MoliÈre with matter for one of his dramas, and La Fontaine materials for a romance), who did not, to use his own language, "make the least scruple of expending his whole fortune in acquiring what he believed to be more valuable, a contempt of it," married a woman more than twice his own age, thirteen years a widow, to procure for himself, as he acknowledged, "a large settlement, and an easy condition of life." That Pythagoras, the first of the ancient sages who took the name of philosopher; who made himself so illustrious by his learning and virtue; who proved so useful in reforming and instructing the world; whose eloquence moved the inhabitants of a great city, plunged in debauchery, to avoid luxury and good cheer, and to live according to the rules of virtue; who prevailed upon the ladies to part with their fine clothes, and all their ornaments, and to make a sacrifice of them to the chief deity of the place; who engaged his disciples to practice the most difficult things, making them undergo a novitiate of silence for at least two years, and extending it to five years for those whom he knew to be more inclined to speak,—peremptorily ordered his disciples to abstain from eating beans, choosing himself rather, as some authorities have it, to be killed by those that pursued him, than to make his escape through a field of beans, so great was his respect for or abhorrence of that plant. That Luther, the greatest of the reformers, and Baxter, the greatest of the Puritans, and Wesley, the greatest religious leader of the last century, believed in witchcraft. That Dr. Johnson, who thought Swift's reputation greater than he deserved, questioning his humor, and denying him the authorship of the Tale of a Tub, could take into his confidence, and reverence for his piety, George Psalmanazar, who deceived the world for some time by pretending to be a native of the island of Formosa, to support which he invented an alphabet and a grammar. ("I should," said Johnson, "as soon think of contradicting a bishop.") That Coleridge was able to depict Mont Blanc and the Vale of Chamouni at sunrise in such an overpowering manner, when he had never seen the Alps; while half-oriental Malta and classical Italy, both of which he had seen, gave him no fruits of poetry. That Schiller wrote his William Tell without ever seeing any of the glories of Lake Lucerne. That Scott, who told how to see "fair Melrose aright," never saw the famous Abbey by moonlight. (Talking of Scott at a dinner-party, Moore said, "He was the soul of honesty. When I was on a visit to him, we were coming up from Kelso at sunset, and as there was to be a fine moon, I quoted to him his own rule for seeing 'fair Melrose aright,' and proposed to stay an hour and enjoy it. 'Bah!' said Scott, 'I never saw it by moonlight.'" "The truth was," says Sir David Brewster, "Scott would not go there for fear of bogles.") That Lalla Rookh, rich, melodious, and glowing with a wealth of imagery which wearies by its very excess, is the production of one who never visited the people or scenes he therein describes. (So true, nevertheless, were its pictures of Eastern life that Colonel Wilks, the historian of British India, could not believe that Moore had never traveled in the East; and the compliment which Luttrell paid him, when he told him that his "lays are sung... by moonlight in the Persian tongue along the streets of Ispahan," is literally true, the work having been translated into Persian, and read with avidity among many Oriental nations.) That Kant, who startled an Englishman with a description of Westminster Bridge, so minutely detailed that his listener in amazement asked him how many years he had lived in London, was never out of Prussia—scarcely out of KÖnigsberg. That Barry Cornwall, although the author of one of the most stirring and popular sea songs in the language—The sea, the sea, the open sea!—was very rarely upon the tossing element, having a great fear of being made ill by it. ("I think he told me," said a visitor, "that he had never dared to cross the Channel even, and so had never seen Paris. He said, like many others, he delighted to gaze upon the waters from a safe place on land, but had a horror of living on it even for a few hours. I recalled to his recollection his own lines—'I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be;' and he shook his head, and laughingly declared I must have misquoted his words, or that Dibdin had written the piece and put Barry Cornwall's signature to it.") That Michelet, who wrote a book on The Sea, had a like horror of it. ("I love the sea," he said, "but as in the case of a crowd, I love it at a distance.") That Vathek, that splendid Oriental tale, was written by a young man of twenty-two who had never visited the countries whose manners he so vividly described; and that of all the glories and prodigalities of the English Sardanapalus, his slender romance, the work of three days, is the only durable memorial. That Beckford's father, while Lord Mayor of London, became especially famous for a speech that was never delivered—the speech in reply to the king, written after the event by Horne Tooke, and engraved on the pedestal of a statue of Beckford erected in Guildhall. That Michel Angelo, unconsciously, laid the first stone of the Reformation. ("History tells us that Julius II. gave him an unlimited commission to make a mausoleum, in which their mutual interests should be combined. The artist's plan was a parallelogram, and the superstructure was to consist of forty statues, many of which were to be colossal, and interspersed with ornamental figures and bronze basso-rilievos, besides the necessary architecture, with appropriate decorations to unite the composition into one stupendous whole. To make a fitting place for it, the pope determined to rebuild St. Peter's itself; and this is the origin of that edifice, which took one hundred and fifty years to complete, and is now the grandest display of architectural splendor that ornaments the Christian world. To prosecute the undertaking, money was wanted, and indulgences were sold to supply the deficiency of the treasury; and a monk of Saxony, opposing the authority of the church, produced this singular event, that whilst the most splendid edifice which the world had ever seen was building for the Catholic faith, the religion to which it was consecrated was shaken to its foundation.") That the erection of one of the pyramids has been ascribed to a Pharaonic princess, of great beauty, who, like Aspasia and Thargelia, became ambitious in her intimacies. (The story is that she was one day taunted by her father with the inutility of the admiration that she excited. Pyramid-building was then the fashion in the family, and she vowed that she would leave behind her a monument of the power of her charms as durable as her august relations did of the power of their armies. The number of her lovers was increased by all those who were content to sacrifice their fortunes for her smiles. The pyramid rose rapidly; with the frailty of its foundress, the massive monument increased; her lovers were ruined, but the fair architect became immortal, and found celebrity long afterward in Sappho's song.) That Gulliver's Travels, the severest lampoon upon humanity, is the favorite fairy tale of the nursery. That the distinction of the wreath of poet's laurel which crowned the heads of Petrarch and Tasso, in both cases was obtained by inferior productions: Scipio Africanus and Gerusalemme Conquistata. That Napoleon, with "a million armed men under his command, and half Europe at his feet, sat down in rage and affright to order FouchÉ to send a little woman over the frontiers lest she should say something about him for the drawing-rooms of Paris to laugh at." That Faraday, who at first begged for the meanest place in a scientific workshop, at last declined the highest honor which British science was capable of granting. That the Jews of Amsterdam, exiles from Spain and Portugal, who owed their existence to flight from repeated persecutions, persecuted Spinoza, excommunicating him with "the anathema wherewith Joshua cursed Jericho, with the curse which Elisha laid upon the children, and with all the curses which are written in the law." That the son of Charles Wesley, born and bred in Methodism, and bound to it by all the strongest ties of pride and prejudice, became a Papist. That Cowper was mad so great a part of his life, when he is the sanest of English poets: of "fine frenzy" in his writings there is little or none. That Burke, who, in his youth, "wrote on the emotions produced by mountains and cascades; by the masterpieces of painting and sculpture; by the faces and necks of beautiful women, in the style of a parliamentary report," in his old age, "discussed treaties and tariffs in the most fervid and brilliant language of romance." That Lord Brougham, when chancellor, on the bench, hearing cases, wrote to Sir David Brewster several letters on light, one of them fourteen pages long. That a fourth part of Chalmers's Astronomical Discourses, which rivaled the Waverley novels in popularity, were penned in a small pocket-book, in a strange apartment, where he was liable every moment to interruptions; for it was, we are told, at the manse of Balmerino, disappointed in not finding the minister at home, and having a couple of hours to spare—and in a drawing-room at the manse of Kilmany, with all the excitement of meeting for the first time, after a year's absence, many of his former friends and parishioners—that he penned paragraph after paragraph of a composition which, as his son-in-law and biographer, Dr. Hanna, says, bears upon it the aspect of high and continuous elaboration. That the author of Auld Robin Gray kept the authorship of her immortal ballad a secret for fifty years. That the title of The Man of Feeling adhered to Mackenzie ever after the publication of that novel; the public fancying him a pensive, sentimental Harley, whereas he was, according to Cockburn, a hard-headed, practical man, as full of worldly wisdom as most of his fictitious characters are devoid of it. That Dryden, who was personally more moral than any of the reigning wits at the commencement of the Restoration, was, in the beginning of his career, the most deliberately and unnaturally coarse as a writer—absolutely toiling and laboring against the grain of his genius, to be sufficiently obscene to please the town. That three great wits—Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot—joined in the production of a play which was condemned the first night it was acted. That Abernethy, who was so bold in the practice of his profession, suffered for so many years from extreme diffidence in the lecture-room—"an unconquerable shyness, a difficulty in commanding at pleasure that self-possession which was necessary to open his lecture;" and that much as he sometimes forgot the courtesy due to his private patients, he was never unkind to those whom charity had confided to his care. (Leaving home one morning for the hospital when some one was desirous of detaining him, he said, "Private patients, if they do not like me, can go elsewhere; but the poor devils in the hospital I am bound to take care of.") That Godwin, who wrote against matrimony, was twice married; and while he scouted all commonplace duties, was a good husband and kind father. That Mrs. Radcliffe had never been in Italy when she wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho, yet her paintings of Italian scenery, and of the mountains of Switzerland, for truth and richness of coloring, have never been surpassed by poet or painter—not even by Byron. That Professor Wilson, whose fame in great part rests upon Noctes AmbrosianÆ, was indebted to Lockhart for the idea, who wrote the first of those famous pa pers, and gave them their name. ("I have known Lockhart long," said Wilson to a visitor; "we used to sup together with Blackwood, and that was the real origin of the Noctes. 'At Ambrose's?' 'At Ambrose's.' 'But is there such a tavern really?' 'Oh, certainly. Anybody will show it to you. It is a small house, kept in an out-of-the-way corner of the town, by Ambrose, who is an excellent fellow in his way, and has had a great influx of custom in consequence of his celebrity in the Noctes. We were there one night very late, and had all been remarkably gay and agreeable. 'What a pity,' said Lockhart, 'that some short-hand writer had not been here to take down the good things that have been said at this supper.' The next day he produced a paper called Noctes AmbrosianÆ, and that was the first. I continued them afterward.") That in Robespierre's desk, after his death, were found David's plans of academies for infancy and asylums for age: "being just about to inaugurate the Reign of Love when the conspiracy against him swept him down the closing abyss of the Reign of Terror." That Lamartine, the French orator, poet, and political leader, when at the zenith of his popularity, was rejected as a witness in court where he had offered himself, the reason of the rejection being that in his youth he had been convicted of a theft. That Mallet, although pensioned for the purpose, never, according to Dr. Johnson, wrote a single line of his projected life of Marlborough,—groping for materials, and thinking of it, till he exhausted his mind. That Robert Morris, the superintendent of finance during the American Revolution, who, on his personal responsibility, borrowed large sums of money for the use of the government, which, on account of the known state of the treasury, could not have been procured in any other way; who refused the post of secretary of the treasury offered to him by Washington—naming Alexander Hamilton for the station—in his old age, having lost his fortune, was confined in a Philadelphia prison, for debt. That in America, in the Province of Pennsylvania, it was enacted by the Council, William Penn presiding, that the laws should "not be printed;" and William Bradford was summoned before the Governor and Council for printing the Charter or Frame of Government of the Province; and Joseph Growden, who caused the printing of the same, with some remarks thereon, was censured by Governor Blackwell, "not only for that it was false, but for that the Proprietor (William Penn) had declared himself against the use of the printing-press." That Beau Brummell, who was for many years the associate of royalty and leader of fashion in England, died, poverty-stricken and miserable, in a French hospital for lunatic mendicants. That the great and good Dr. Johnson, "that majestic teacher of moral and religious wisdom," when he was in Edinburgh, although personally acquainted with the celebrated Dr. Robertson, declined going to hear him preach, because he "would not be seen in a Presbyterian church;" and upon being asked by Boswell where John Knox was buried, burst out, "I hope in the highway." That Wordsworth earnestly defended the Church Establishment, saying he would shed his blood for it, when he had confessed that he knew not when he had been in a church in his own country. ("All our ministers," he said, "are so vile.") That the vanity of Sir Philip Francis, in the opinion of Moore, led him to think that it was no great addition to his fame to have the credit of Junius, having done, according to his own notion, much better things. ("This," said the poet, "gets over one of the great difficulties in accounting for the concealment; and it must have been, at all events, either some very celebrated man who could dispense with such fame, or some very vain man who thought he could.") That August von Kotzebue, "the idol of the mob," was despised if not hated by the great poets of his country. ("One of his plays, The Stranger," said an eminent Englishman, "I have seen acted in German, English, Spanish, French, and, I believe, also in Italian.") That Lavater, with all his real and pretended knowledge of human nature, was duped by Cagliostro. That Hogarth had the impression, which his reputation as a satirist could never disturb, that historical painting was his true vocation. That the mild Melancthon approved of the burning of Servetus. That Joseph Scaliger, who perfectly understood thirteen languages, was deeply versed in almost every branch of literature—perhaps one of the greatest scholars that any age has produced—found so much perplexity, not in acquiring, but in communicating his knowledge, that sometimes, like Nero, he wished he had never known his letters. That Chillingworth, the constant study of whose works was recommended by Locke, "for attaining the way of right reasoning," and of whom it was affirmed that he had "such extraordinary clear reason, that if the great Turk or devil could be converted, he was able to do it," contracted, according to Lord Clarendon, "such an irresolution and habit of doubting, that at last he was confident of nothing." That Gray's Elegy, taking the author's own word for it, was not intended for the public; the poet's sole ambition being to gratify a few of his friends; his own family, even, were not made a party to his writings, and his fond mother lived and died in ignorance of his immortal verse. That Playfair, when racked on his death-bed with pain, and a relation wishing to amuse him by reading one of Scott's novels, of which he was very fond, dissuaded it, saying, he would rather try the Principia. That Horace Walpole, who was greedy to excess of praise, and keenly sensitive to criticism, professed a strong aversion to being considered a man of letters; and that with all his avowed contempt for literary fame, left fair copies of his private correspondence, with copious notes, to be published after his decease. That Mirabeau, who came into the world with "a huge head, a pair of grinders, one foot twisted, and tongue-tied, disfigured when three years old by confluent small-pox," called, as he grew up, a "monster," a "disheveled bully," "as ugly as the nephew of Satan," turned out to be the Demosthenes of France, and the idol of beautiful Parisian women. That Sanson, the hereditary French executioner, who officiated at the decapitation of Louis XVI., founded, before he died, a perpetual anniversary mass for the repose of the monarch's soul; and wrote his Memoirs in the style of a philanthropist, whom fate had condemned to officiate at the guillotine. That Rousseau, the chief article of whose rather hazy creed was the duty of universal philanthropy, fancied himself the object of all men's hatred. That Cowper, who held that the first duty of man was the love of God, fancied himself the object of the irrevocable hatred of his Creator. That the very name of the Cross was forbidden by the French Republic at the very time when it had proclaimed unbounded religious freedom. That the charge of plagiarism against Sterne rests in great part upon his plagiarizing an invective against plagiarism. That George Crabbe gave the leisure of more than twenty of his ripest years to writing three novels, which he afterward burned. That FranÇois Huber, who wrote the extraordinary Treatise on the Economy of Bees, which for general information on the subject has never been superseded, was from the sixteenth year of his age totally blind,—all the curious remarks and inferences involved in his observations being founded on fifty years of careful researches which he directed others, and particularly a favorite servant, to make. That eighteen years elapsed after the time that Columbus conceived his enterprise before he was enabled to carry it into effect,—most of that time being passed in almost hopeless solicitation, amidst poverty, neglect, and taunting ridicule; when "Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle-dealer at Seville, who went out, in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda, and whose highest naval rank was boatswain's mate in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus, and baptize half the earth with his dishonest name." That Montaigne, who considered cruelty "the extreme of all vices," was a friend of the Guises and of the blood-stained Mont-luc: he was also for many years a member of a parliament which had much innocent blood on its head, and always spoke with reverence and affection of those who carried out the St. Bartholomew. That La Fontaine, who in his Fables "makes animals, trees, and stones talk," was in his conversation proverbial