[9] And therefore it was with strict propriety that Boyle, anxious to fix public attention upon some truths of hydrostatics, published them avowedly as _paradoxes._ According to the false popular notion of what it is that constitutes a paradox, Boyle should be taken to mean that these hydrostatic theorems were fallacies. But far from it. Boyle solicits attention to these propositions--not as seeming to be true and turning out false, but, reversely, as wearing an air of falsehood and turning out true. [10] This Dr. Wilkins was related to marriage to Cromwell, and is better known to the world, perhaps, by his Essay on the possibility of a passage (or, as the famous author of the "Pursuits of Literature" said, by way of an episcopal metaphor, the possibility of a _translation_) to the moon. [11] One omission occurs to me on reviewing this account of the Ziph, which is--that I should have directed the accent to be placed on the intercalated syllable: thus _ship_ becomes _shigip_, with the emphasis on _gip_; _run_ becomes _rugún_, &c. [12] Written twenty years ago. [13] But see the note on this point at the end of the volume. [14] Lord Westport's age at that time was the same as my own; that is, we both wanted a few months of being fifteen. But I had the advantage, perhaps, in thoughtfulness and observation of life. Being thoroughly free, however, from opinionativeness, Lord Westport readily came over to any views of mine for which I could show sufficient grounds. And on this occasion I found no difficulty in convincing him that honor and fidelity did not form sufficient guaranties for the custody of secrets. Presence of mind so as to revive one's obligations in time, tenacity of recollection, and vigilance over one's own momentary slips of tongue, so as to keep watch over indirect disclosures, are also requisite. And at that time I had an instance within my own remembrance where a secret had been betrayed, by a person of undoubted honor, but most inadvertently betrayed, and in pure oblivion of his engagement to silence. Indeed, unless where the secret is of a nature to affect some person's life, I do not believe that most people would remember beyond a period of two years the most solemn obligations to secrecy. After a lapse of time, varying of course with the person, the substance of the secret will remain upon the mind; but how he came by the secret, or under what circumstances, he will very probably have forgotten. It is unsafe to rely upon the most religious or sacramental obligation to secrecy, unless, together with the secret, you could transfer also a magic ring that should, by a growing pressure or puncture, _sting_ a man into timely alarm and warning. CHAPTER VIII. DUBLIN.