* * * * *

FONTENELLE'S INSENSIBILITY.

Fontenelle, who lived till within one month of a century, was very
rarely known to laugh or cry, and even boasted of his insensibility. One
day, a certain _bon-vivant_ Abbe came unexpectedly to dine with him. The
Abbe was fond of asparagus dressed with butter; Fontenelle, also, had a
great _gout_ for the vegetable, but preferred it dressed with oil.
Fontenelle said, that, for such a friend, there was no sacrifice he
would not make; and that he should have half the dish of asparagus
which he had ordered for himself, and that half, moreover, should be
dressed with butter. While they were conversing together, the poor
Abbe fell down in a fit of apoplexy; upon which Fontenelle instantly
scampered down stairs, and eagerly bawled out to his cook, "The whole
with oil! the whole with oil, as at first!"

* * * * *

PAINS AND TOILS OF AUTHORSHIP.

The craft of authorship is by no means so easy of practice as is
generally imagined by the thousands who aspire to its practice. Almost
all our works, whether of knowledge or of fancy, have been the product
of much intellectual exertion and study; or, as it is better expressed
by the poet--

"the well-ripened fruits of wise decay."

Pope published nothing until it had been a year or two before him, and
even then his printer's proofs were very full of alterations; and, on
one occasion, Dodsley, his publisher, thought it better to have the
whole recomposed than make the necessary corrections. Goldsmith
considered four lines a day good work, and was seven years in beating
out the pure gold of the _Deserted Village_. Hume wrote his _History of
England_ on a sofa, but he went quietly on correcting every edition till
his death. Robertson used to write out his sentences on small slips of
paper; and, after rounding them and polishing them to his satisfaction,
he entered them in a book, which, in its turn, underwent considerable
revision. Burke had all his principal works printed two or three times
at a private press before submitting them to his publisher. Akenside and
Gray were indefatigable correctors, labouring every line; and so was our
prolix and more imaginative poet, Thomson. On comparing the first and
latest editions of the _Seasons_, there will be found scarcely a page
which does not bear evidence of his taste and industry. Johnson thinks
the poems lost much of their rac