Wycherley being at Tunbridge for the benefit of his health, after his return from the Continental trip the cost of which the king had defrayed, was walking one day with his friend, Mr. Fairbeard, of Gray’s Inn. Just as they came up to a bookseller’s shop, the Countess of Drogheda, a young, rich, noble, and lovely widow, came to the bookseller and inquired for the Plain Dealer—a well-known comedy of Wycherley’s. “Madam,” said Mr. Fairbeard, “since you are for the Plain Dealer, there he is for you”—pushing Wycherley towards her. “Yes,” said Wycherley, “this lady can bear plain dealing; for she appears to me to be so accomplished, that what would be compliment said to others, would be plain dealing spoken to her.” “No, truly, sir,” said the Countess; “I am not without my faults, any more than the rest of my sex; and yet I love plain dealing, and am never more fond of it than when it tells me of them.” “Then, Madam,” said Fairbeard, “You and the Plain Dealer seem designed by Heaven for each other.” In short, Wycherley walked with the Countess, waited upon her home, visited her daily while she was at Tunbridge, and afterwards when she went to London; where, in a little time, a marriage was concluded between them. The marriage was not a happy one.
A CAROUSE AT BOILEAU’S.
Boileau, the celebrated French comedian, usually passed the summer at his villa of Auteuil, which is pleasantly situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne. Here he took delight in assembling under his roof the most eminent geniuses of the age; especially Chapelle, Racine, Molière, and La Fontaine. Racine the younger gives the following account of a droll circumstance that occurred at supper at Auteuil with these guests. “At this supper,” he says, “at which my father was not present, the wise Boileau was no more master of himself than any of his guests. After the wine had led them into the gravest strain of moralising, they agreed that life was but a state of misery; that the greatest happiness consisted in having been born, and the next greatest in an early death; and they one and all formed the heroic resolution of throwing themselves without loss of time into the river. It was not far off, and they actually went thither. Molière, however, remarked that such a noble action ought not to be buried in the obscurity of night, but was worthy of being performed in the face of day. This observation produced a pause; one looked at the other, and said, ‘He is right.’ ‘Gentlemen,’ said Chapelle, ‘we had better wait till morning to throw ourselves into the river, and meantime return and finish our wine;’ ” but the river was not revisited.
THOMSON’S INDOLENCE.
The author of the Seasons and the Castle of Indolence, paid homage in the latter admirable poem to the master-passion or habit of his own easy nature. Thomson was so excessively lazy, that he is recorded to have been seen standing at a peach-tree, with both his hands in his pockets, eating the fruit as it grew. At another time, being found in bed at a very late hour of the day, when he was asked why he did not get up, his answer was, “Troth, man, I see nae motive for rising!”
A LEARNED YOUNG LADY.
Fraulein Dorothea Schlozer, a Hanoverian lady, was thought worthy of the highest academical honours of Göttingen University, and, at the jubilee of 1787, she had the degree of Doctor of Philosophy conferred upon her, when only seventeen years of age. The daughter of the Professor of Philosophy in that University, she from her earliest years discovered an uncommon genius for learning. Before she was three years of age, she was taught Low German, a language almost foreign to her own. Before she was six, she had learned French and German, and then she began geometry; and after receiving ten lessons, she was able to answer very difficult questions. The English, Italian, Swedish, and Dutch languages were next acquired, with singular rapidity; and before she was fourteen, she knew Latin and Greek, and had become a good classical scholar. Besides her knowledge of languages, she made herself acquainted with almost every branch of polite literature, as well as many of the sciences, particularly mathematics. She also attained great proficiency in mineralogy; and, during a sojourn of six weeks in the Hartz Forest, she visited the deepest mines, in the common habit of a labourer, and examined the whole process of the work. Her surprising talents becoming the general topic of conversation, she was proposed, by the great Orientalist Michaelis, as a proper subject for academical honours. The Philosophical Faculty, of which the Professor was Dean, was deemed the fittest; and a day was fixed for her examination, in presence of all the Professors. She was introduced by Michaelis himself, and distinguished, as a lady, with the highest seat. Several questions were first proposed to her in mathematics; all of which she answered to satisfaction. After this, she gave a free translation of the thirty-seventh Ode of the first Book of Horace, and explained it. She was then examined in various branches of art and science, when she displayed a thorough knowledge of the subjects. The examination lasted two hours and a half; and at the end, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was unanimously conferred upon her, and she was crowned with a wreath of laurel by Fraulein Michaelis, at the request of the Professors.