world, nor the class of poets. It is trifling to tell us that Dr.
Johnson was accustomed "_to cut his nails to the quick_." I am not much
gratified by being informed, that Menage wore _a greater number of
stockings_ than any other person, excepting one, whose name I have
really forgotten. The biographer of Cujas, a celebrated lawyer, says
that _two things_ were _remarkable_ of this _scholar_. The _first_, that
he studied on the floor, lying prostrate on a carpet, with his books
about him; and, _secondly_, that his perspiration exhaled an agreeable
smell, which he used to inform his friends he had in common with
Alexander the Great! This admirable biographer should have told us
whether he frequently turned from his very uneasy attitude. Somebody
informs us, that Guy Patin resembled Cicero, whose statue is preserved
at Rome; on which he enters into a comparison of Patin with Cicero; but
a man may resemble a _statue_ of Cicero, and yet not be Cicero. Baillet
loads his life of Descartes with a thousand minutiae, which less disgrace
the philosopher than the biographer. Was it worth informing the public,
that Descartes was very particular about his wigs; that he had them
manufactured at Paris; and that he always kept four? That he wore green
taffety in France: but that in Holland he quitted taffety for cloth; and
that he was fond of omelets of eggs?

It is an odd observation of Clarendon in his own life, that "Mr.
Chillingworth was of a stature little superior to Mr. Hales; and it _was
an age in which there were many great and wonderful men of_ THAT SIZE."
Lord Falkland, formerly Sir Lucius Carey, was of a low stature, and
smaller than most men; and of Sidney Godolphin, "There was never so
great a mind and spirit contained in so little room; so that Lord
Falkland used to say merrily, that he thought it was a great ingredient
in his friendship for Mr. Godolphin, that he was pleased to be found in
his company where he was the properer man." This irrelevant observation
of Lord Clarendon is an instance where a great mind will sometimes draw
inferences from accidental coincidences, and establish them into a
general principle; as if the small size of the men had even the remotest
connexion with their genius and their virtues. Perhaps, too, there was
in this a tincture of the superstitions of the times: whatever it was,
the fact ought not to have degraded the truth and dignity of historical
narrative. We have writers who cannot disco