humble Soliloquy. The Drop, says the Fable, lay a great while hardning in the Shell, 'till by Degrees it was ripen'd into a Pearl, which falling into the Hands of a Diver, after a long Series of Adventures, is at present that famous Pearl which is fixed on the Top of the Persian Diadem.
L.
Balthasar Gracian, a Spanish Jesuit, who died in 1658, rector of the Jesuits' College of Tarragona, wrote many books in Spanish on Politics and Society, among others the one here referred to on the Courtier; which was known to Addison, doubtless, through the French translation by Amelot de la Houssaye.
[cross-reference: return to Footnote 3 of No. 379]
Corrected by an
erratum