WHETHER A MAN AND HIMSELF BE TWO.—MAXIM OF BAYLE'S.—ADAM LITTLETON'S SERMONS,—A RIGHT HEARTED OLD DIVINE WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HOPES TO BE BETTER ACQUAINTED IN A BETTER WORLD.—THE READER REFERRED TO HIM FOR EDIFICATION.—WHY THE AUTHOR PURCHASED HIS SERMONS. _Parolles._ Go to, thou art a witty fool, I have found thee. _Clown._ Did you find me in yourself, Sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, Sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of laughter. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. “Whether this author means to make his Doctor more fool or philosopher, is more than I can discover,” says a grave reader, who lays down the open book, and knits his brow while he considers the question. _Make_ him, good Reader! I, _make_ him!—make “the noblest work of”——But as the Spaniards say, _el creer es cortesia_, and it is at your pleasure either to believe the veracity of these biographical sketches, or to regard them as altogether fictitious. It is at your pleasure, I say; not at your peril: but take heed how you exercise that pleasure in cases which are perilous! The worst that can happen to you for disbelief in this matter is, that I shall give you little credit for courtesy, and less for discrimination; and in Doncaster you will be laughed to scorn. You might as well proclaim at Coventry your disbelief in the history of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom; or tell the Swiss that their tale of shooting the apple on the child's head was an old story before William Tell was born. But perhaps you did not mean to express any such groundless incredulity, your doubt may be whether I represent or consider my friend as having in his character a larger portion of folly or of philosophy? This you might determine, Reader, for yourself, if I could succeed in delineating him to the life,—the inner I mean, not the outward man, _Et en peu de papier, comme sur un tableau, Vous pourtraire au naïf tout son bon, et son beau._[1] He was the soul of goodness, And all our praises of him are like streams Drawn from a spring, that still rise full, and leave The part remaining greatest. But the Duchess of Newcastle hath decided in her philosophy that it is not possible for any one person thoroughly to understand the character of another. In her own words, “if the Mind was not joined and mixed with the sensitive and inanimate parts, and had not interior as well as exterior parts, the whole Mind of one man might perceive the whole Mind of another man; but that being not possible—one whole Mind cannot perceive another whole Mind.” By which observation we may perceive there are no Platonic Lovers in Nature. An odd conclusion of her Grace's, and from odd premises. But she was an odd personage. [Footnote 1: PASQUIER.]