The paradox being the proposition of something which runs counter to what would generally be thought likely, may present itself in many ways. There is a _fly-leaf paradox_, which puzzled me for many years, until I found a probable solution. I frequently saw, in the blank leaves of old books, learned books, Bibles of a time when a Bible was very costly, etc., the name of an owner who, by the handwriting and spelling, must have been an illiterate person or a child, followed by the date of the book itself. Accordingly, this uneducated person or young child seemed to be the first owner, which in many cases was not credible. Looking one day at a Barker's[418] Bible of 1599, I saw an {265} inscription in a child's writing, which certainly belonged to a much later date. It was "Martha Taylor, her book, giuen me by Granny Scott to keep for her sake." With this the usual verses, followed by 1599, the date of the book. But it so chanced that the blank page opposite the title, on which the above was written, was a verso of the last leaf of a prayer book, which had been bound before the Bible; and on the recto of this leaf was a colophon, with the date 1632. It struck me immediately that uneducated persons and children, having seen dates written under names, and not being quite up in chronology, did frequently finish off with the date of the book, which stared them in the face.
Always write in your books. You may be a silly person--for though your reading my book is rather a contrary presumption, yet it is not conclusive--and your observations may be silly or irrelevant, but you cannot tell what use they may be of long after you are gone where Budgeteers cease from troubling.
I picked up the following book, printed by J. Franklin[419] at Boston, during the period in which his younger brother Benjamin was his apprentice. And as Benjamin was apprenticed very early, and is recorded as having learned the mechanical art very rapidly, there is some presumption that part of it may be his work, though he was but thirteen at the time. As this set of editions of Hodder[420] (by {266} Mose[421]) is not mentioned, to my knowledge, I give the title in full:
"Hodder's Arithmetick: or that necessary art made most easy: Being explained in a way familiar to the capacity of any that desire to learn it in a little time. By James Hodder, Writing-master. The Five and twentieth edition, revised, augmented, and above a thousand faults amended, by Henry Mose, late servant and successor to the author. Boston: printed by J. Franklin, for S. Phillips, N. Buttolph, B. Elliot, D. Henchman, G. Phillips, J. Elliot, and E. Negus, booksellers in Boston, and sold at their shops. 1719."
The book is a very small octavo, the type and execution are creditable, the woodcut at the beginning is clumsy. It is a perfect copy, page for page, of the English editions of Mose's Hodder, of which the one called seventeenth is of London, 1690. There is not a syllable to show that the edition above described might not be of Boston in England. Presumptions, but not very strong ones, might be derived from the name of _Franklin_, and from the large number of booksellers who combined in the undertaking. It chanced, however, that a former owner had made the following note in my copy:
"Wednessday, July y^e 14, 1796, att ten in y^e forenoon we sail^d from Boston, came too twice, once in King Rode, and once in y^e Narrows. Sail^d by y^e lighthouse in y^e even^g."
{267}
No ordinary map would decide these points: so I had to apply to my friend Sir Francis Beaufort,[422] and the charts at the Admiralty decided immediately for Massachusetts.
