fterwards adroitly practised,
uniting the lion's head with the fox's tail--and thus himself realising
the political monster of Machiavel!

[Footnote A: See what is said on this subject in the article on Sterne in
the "Literary Miscellanies," of the present volume.]

And thus also is it with the personal dispositions of an author, which may
be quite the reverse from those which appear in his writings. Johnson
would not believe that HORACE was a happy man because his verses were
cheerful, any more than he could think POPE so, because the poet is
continually informing us of it. It surprised Spence when Pope told him
that ROWE, the tragic poet, whom he had considered so solemn a personage,
"would laugh all day long, and do nothing else but laugh." Lord Kaimes
says, that ARBUTHNOT must have been a great genius, for he exceeded Swift
and Addison in humorous painting; although we are informed he had nothing
of that peculiarity in his character. YOUNG, who is constantly contemning
preferment in his writings, was all his life pining after it; and the
conversation of the sombrous author of the "Night Thoughts" was of the
most volatile kind, abounding with trivial puns. He was one of the first
who subscribed to the assembly at Wellwyn. Mrs. Carter, who greatly
admired his sublime poetry, expressing her surprise at his social
converse, he replied, "Madam, there is much difference between writing and
talking."

MOLIERE, on the contrary, whose humour is so perfectly comic, and
even ludicrous, was thoughtful and serious, and even melancholy. His
strongly-featured physiognomy exhibits the face of a great tragic, rather
than of a great comic, poet. Boileau called Moliere "The Contemplative
Man." Those who make the world laugh often themselves laugh the least. A
famous and witty harlequin of France was overcome with hypochondriasm, and
consulted a physician, who, after inquiring about his malady, told his
miserable patient, that he knew of no other medicine for him than to take
frequent doses of Carlin--"I am Carlin himself," exclaimed the melancholy
man, in despair. BURTON, the pleasant and vivacious author of "The Anatomy
of Melancholy," of whom it is noticed, that he could in an interval of
vapours raise laughter in any company, in his chamber was "mute and
mopish," and at last was so overcome by that intellectual disorder, which
he appeared to have got rid of by writing his volume, that it is believed
he closed his life in a fit of