BOSWELLIANA. (continued 2)

Councillor Vansittart, who was present.

“At the exhibition of the Royal Academy at London in 1772 there was a picture of Lord Clive renouncing Meer Jaffier’s legacy in favour of the East India Company, for the support of invalids. Dempster did not perfectly believe the story of this picture. He was dining at Sir George Colebrooke’s,[225] and Lady Colebrooke would needs expatiate upon this picture, and on the subject of it. ‘Madam,’ said Dempster, ‘I take it that affair won’t bear to be canvassed.’”

Mr. Dempster.

“On Monday, the 2nd November, 1772, I dined at Fortune’s in company with Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander,[226] and several more, at an entertainment given by Mr. Hamilton, of Bangour,[227] when the following good things passed:

“Lord Kelly[228] said of a Mr. Wright who was present, ‘He has been in several parts of the world, and I expect to see him in Otaheite before he dies.’ ‘So then, my lord,’ said David Hume, Esq., ‘you expect to be there yourself.’ My lord, in order to retort upon Hume for this catching at his word, set himself in a steady posture, and said, ‘My dear David, if you were to go there you would be obliged to retract all your essays on miracles.’ ‘Oh no, my lord,’ said Hume, ‘everything there is in nature.’ ‘Aye,’ said the Earl, ‘(but) there are different natures.’”

“Mr. Hamilton of Bangour’s lady, was that morning delivered of a son, who was not yet baptized. Lord Kelly proposed his health; but addressing himself to Principal Robertson, said, ‘Doctor, this is not a safe toast for you, for he’s not a Christian.’ ‘My lord,’ said the Principal, ‘there are good hopes.’ Hume laughed. Said the Earl, ‘David, if there are hopes, I am afraid it will be worse for you.’”

“Somebody observed that Lord Elibank[229] was constantly reading Lucretius; another asked, ‘Has he given up Tacitus?’ Said Lord Kelly, ‘It’s long since he gave up Tacitus; for he never can hold his tongue a minute, and he has taken to Lucretius because he feels himself grown so old that he would make but a poor figure with Lucretia.’ At saying this the earl laughed, as if in scorn, and cried, ‘Such nonsense!’”

“Our frame and temper of mind depends much on the state of our bodies. The human body is often called a machine, and a wonderful machine it is. The blood is like quicksilver, the veins like feathers, the nerves like springs. The soul sits in the machine. As one who in a chaise when driving hard cannot hear or give attention, I have been conscious of the corporeal machine running on with such rapidity that I felt to apply seriously to anything was in vain for me while that continued.”

“Mr. Crosbie,[230] the advocate, when he once took up an idea retained it most obstinately, even after there was convincing evidence against it. On occasion of the great cause between Nabob Fullerton[231] and Orangefield,[232] where he and I were on opposite sides, he persisted in thinking Fullerton in the right, when every one else was clear against him. I said Crosbie’s head was like a Christmas-box with a slit in the top of it. If once a thing has got into it, you cannot get it out again but by breaking the box. ‘We must break your head, Crosbie,’ said I.”

“It’s a good thing for Scotland that we can appeal to the House of Lords. I look upon that court, the House of Lords, as a great rolling stone, which by going over a cause effectually smooths it at once, when our fifteen lords, who have been breaking the clods with their mallets for a long time, may have left some parts rough; or sometimes may have found large masses which they have not been able to break at all. The rolling stone can never do harm. If the cause is smooth, it will make it more firmly so; if rough in whole or in part, will smooth it.”

“Banks and Solander were telling of a monstrous crater which they had found in Iceland, which threw up prodigious quantities of hot water to an amazing height. The story, I believe, was true. But I had my joke on them as travellers; I said they had found a kettle to boil Pontopidan the Bishop of Berghen’s wonderful fish.”

“I have observed that the Lords of Justiciary in Scotland, though they proceed with strong common sense and in general with material justice, yet have not studied criminal law as a science, though it is a very extensive, important, and nice one. Being lords of session, their attention is chiefly taken up with civil affairs, and they take criminal matters only by the bye. They are like barber-surgeons, who shave—and bleed—upon occasions.”

“There are a variety of little circumstances in life, which, like pins in a lady’s dress, are necessary for keeping it together, and giving it neatness and elegance.”

“A man of fame and acknowledged judgment as an author giving his opinion to a bookseller in favour of a literary work, the copy of which is offered for sale, when he does not sincerely think as he says, is a piece of real dishonesty, quite different from those commendations which a good-natured though not strictly honest flattery bestows. It is like a goldsmith, to whom suspicious metal is referred, certifying that it is gold when he knows it to be brass or a bad mixture.”

“Dr. Johnson had a very high opinion of Edmund Burke. He said, ‘That fellow calls forth all my powers;’ and once, when he was out of spirits and rather dejected, he said, ‘Were I to see Burke now ’twould kill me.’”

Mr. Langton.[233]

“Mr. Johnson used to laugh at a passage in Carte’s ‘Life[234] of the Duke of Ormond,’ where he gravely observes ‘that he was always in full dress when he went to court; too many being in the practice of going thither with double lapells.’”

Mr. Langton.

“——, who translated ‘Ariosto,’ had a dispute with Tom Wharton[235] as to some passages of it. —— knew the subject perfectly, but could not express himself. Wharton knew it very superficially, but wrote with ease and vivacity. Johnson said ‘the one had ball without powder, and the other powder without ball.’”

“Johnson had a sovereign contempt for Wilkes and his party, whom he looked upon as a mere rabble. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘had Wilkes’s mob prevailed against Government, this nation had died of phthiriasis.’ Mr. Langton told me this. The expression, Morbus pediculosus, as being better known, would strike more. Lousy disease may be put in a parenthesis.”

“Mr. Ilay Campbell[236] spoke with admirable good sense and ingenuity, but had a very weak voice and a diminutive appearance and manner. I said his pleading was like Giardini’s playing on a child’s fiddle.”

“The extracts of a book given in the review often please us much more than the book itself does. The extracts are embellished and illustrated with criticism. It is like collops well-seasoned and served up with a good sauce, which are better eating than the sirloin or rump from whence they are cut. (Or, thus one eats with greater relish slices or collops well seasoned and served up with a good sauce, than one does the sirloin or rump from whence they are cut).”

“I said the Court of Session was much more quiet and agreeable when President Dundas[237] was absent. ‘When he is there,’ said I, ‘you feel yourself as in a bleachfield with a large dog in it. He is chained and does not bite you. But he barks wowf, wowf, and makes you start; your nerves are hurt by him.’”

“Mr. Alexander Murray,[238] said that the President Dundas upon the bench was like Lord Kelly playing in a concert—very quick, loud, and rumbling. Nothing can be a more lively representation of his manner than this, when you harangue a little with the president’s blustering tone and bounces of voice at intervals—‘I cannot agree to give you this cause against the Duke of Gordon, sitting here as judge on great revolution principles,’ &c.”

“I said that Mr. Charles Hay[239] and I, who studied Scotch law together, used to go to Mr. McLaurin,[240] when we found any difficulty, as to a mill to get it ground. ‘Yes,’ said Crosbie, ‘and he made you twenty difficulties out of one.’ ‘The observation,’ said I, ‘is just and witty. It reminds me of the fable of the lady, who when she was not pleased with her looks dashed the mirror in pieces, and so saw a multitude of ugly faces instead of one.’”

“26th June, 1774.—At a Sunday’s supper at Dr. Webster’s, when I was finding fault with a lady for going to visit a relation who had married a low man, the Doctor said that treating such people with mere civility was the best way to get the better of them. I answered, ‘I don’t want to get the better of them, I want to get rid of them: you may get the better of a sow by going into the mire and boxing it; but who would do it?’ My wife, who wanted to support Dr. Webster, though she had not much attended to the dispute, said something which was of pretty much the same import with my remarks. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘this is good enough. She thinks she is opposing me, and yet she agrees with me; she thinks she is riding a race with me and getting the better, and all the time she is behind me.’”

“My father told me that when he got his gown upon the resignation of the worthy Lord Dun,[241] he went and waited upon him, and said, ‘My lord, as I am to be your lordship’s unworthy successor I am come to ask your blessing.’ ‘Sir,’ said Lord Dun, ‘I held that office too long, for I was come to be but half a judge. Nay, what do I say? I was come to be worse, for I was able to give corporal presence but one-half of the year, and when I was present I could not have given that attention which every man ought to have who decides on the property of others. But to tell you the truth, I held my office from an apprehension that they might put in a man even worse than half a judge. However, sir, since you are to be my successor,’—(he then paid my father some genteel compliments); he added, ‘I have no title to give a blessing, but if my prayers can be of any service to you, while I live they shall never be wanting.’”

“29th June, 1774.—I said the business of the Court of Session went on as fast without the President[242] as with him, though with less noise, when he was absent the court was a plain girr (hoop), which ran smoothly and quietly; when he was there, it was a girr with jinglers.’”

“When Charles Townshend[243] read some of Lord Kames’[244] ‘Elements of Criticism,’ he said, ‘This is the work of a dull man grown whimsical,’—a most characteristical account of Lord Kames as a writer.”

Mr. George Wallace.[245]

“Mr. Andrew Balfour[246] said of Lord Kames, ‘He has the obstinacy of a mule and the levity of a harlequin.’”

Mr. Charles Hay.

“Mr. Alexander Lockhart, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, very readily shed tears when he pleased, whether from feeling or from a weakness in his eyes was disputed. He was also very fond of getting his fees. I applied to him a part of a fine passage in Shakspere,—

‘He hath a tear for pity, and a hand Open as the day.’”

“When Andrew Stuart declared himself a candidate as member of Parliament for Lanarkshire after being stigmatised so severely by Thurlow and Lord Camden for his conduct in the Douglas cause, Sir John Douglas, who was very keen in the great cause, and had admirable extravagant sallies, said, ‘What think you of this fellow? He has brass indeed! why, you may make ten dozen of tea-kettles out of his forehead.’”

I was present.

“I always wished to go to the English bar. When I found I could labour, I said it was pity to dig in a lead mine when I could get to a gold one.”

“In 1774 there came on before the Court of Session a cause at the instance of a black[247] for having it declared that he was free. I was one of the counsel. We took no fees; and I said I knew one thing, that he was not a Guinea black.”

“General Scott[248] was a man of wonderful good luck. He married Lady Mary Hay, a very fine woman. She ran off with Captain Sutherland, but was catched at Barnet, and the General got a divorce with the utmost ease. He then married Miss Peggy Dundas, who proved an admirable wife. Everything turned out well for him. Sandie Murray[249] said he was like a cat, throw him as you please he always falls on his feet. Nairne,[250] on hearing this, quoted the motto of the Isle of Man,—

‘Quocunque jeceris stabit.’”

“General Scott and General Grant,[251] two noted gamesters, were one day driving upon the sands of Leith at the races in a post-chaise together. Nisbet,[252] of Dirleton, pointing to them, said very significantly from Prior, ‘An honest, but a simple pair.’”

“June 18th, 1774.—I said in a dispute with Sir Alexander Dick,[253] on the different estimation to be put on sons and daughters, that sons are truly part of a family; daughters go into other families. Sons are the furniture of your house; daughters are furniture in your house only for sale. No man would wish to have his daughters fixtures. Such of them as are well looked are like pictures in the catalogues of the exhibition, those marked thus are for sale. (Or thus, daughters are like certain pictures in the exhibition, those marked thus, &c.)”

“June 18th, 1774.—Cosmo Gordon and I were talking of David Moncrieffe,[254] whose vanity was consummate, and who was flattered prodigiously by those whom he entertained, Cosmo mentioned a company of some of them, and said he would be embalmed. ‘Yes’ said I, ‘David gets himself made a mummy in his own lifetime.’ Said Cosmo, ‘Like Charles V., who went into his own coffin.’”

“I said Moncrieffe entertained people to flatter him, as we feed a cow to give us milk. The better the pasture, the more plentiful and richer will the milk be. Moncrieffe therefore feeds his pecora ventri obedientia in clover. Other comparisons may be made. He feeds people like silkworms, for their silk, or like civet cats, for their perfume.”

“Mr. Brown,[255] merchant in Edinburgh, who, from his stiffness of temper and manners went by the name of Buckram Brown, was a violent American; and when it was said that the king’s army had defeated and dispersed General Washington’s army near New York, ‘That is nothing,’ said he; ‘for there will start up new armies of twenty, thirty, forty thousand men.’ The Hon. Captain Archibald Erskine[256] on being told this said very pleasantly, alluding to Falstaff’s fictitious foes and Mr. Brown’s nickname, yes, men in Buckram.’”

I was present.

“There was a woman called Mrs. Betty Kettle, who lived with Mr. Thomson of Charleton,[257] and was exceedingly ill-tempered and troublesome. Lady Anne Erskine[258] said, ‘Mrs. Betty Kettle kept all the house in hot water.’”

Honble. Capt. Archibald Erskine.

“The writers who attacked David Hume before Beattie[259] took the lash in hand, treated him with so much deference that they had no effect. He was cased in a covering of respect. But Beattie stripped him of all his assumed dignity, and having laid his back bare, scourged him till he smarted keenly, and cursed again. David was on very civil terms with his former opponents, being treated by them as Dr. Shebbeare was in the pillory, who was being allowed to wear a fine powdered flowing wig. But he was virulent against Beattie, as I have witnessed, for Beattie treated him as an enemy to morals and religion deserved.”

“I said that Dempster and Crosbie were different: thus Dempster had elegant knowledge of men and books, with vivacity to show it; Crosbie solid stores of learning and law and antiquities and natural philosophy. Dempster resembles a jeweller’s shop, gay and glittering in the sun; Crosbie, the warehouse of an opulent merchant, dusky somewhat, but filled with large quantities of substantial goods.”

“I am for most part either in too high spirits or too low. I am a grand wrestler with life. It is either above me, or I am above it; yet there are calm intervals in which I have no struggle with life, and I go quietly on.—February, 1777.”

“Sir Adam Fergusson,[260] who, by a strange coincidence of chances, got in to be member of parliament for Ayrshire in 1774, was the great-grandson of a messenger. I was talking at Rowallan[261] on the 17th March, 1777, with great indignation that the whole families of the county should be defeated by an upstart. Major Dunlop[262] urged the popular topick, that the other candidate, Mr. Kennedy,[263] was supported by noblemen who wanted to annihilate the influence of the gentlemen, and he still harped on the coalition of three peers. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘let the ancient respectable families have the lead, rather than the spawn of a messenger. Better three peers than three oyeses.’”

“Mr. David Rae,[264] advocate, when he pleaded in appeals at the bar of the House of Lords, used to speak a strange kind of English by way of avoiding Scotch. In particular he pronounced the termination, tion, as in petition, very open, that he might not sound it shin, as is done in Scotland. Mr. Nairne, advocate, said Mr. Rae has shone—tion—more in the House of Lords than any man.”

I was present.

“Mr. David Rae, advocate, one day pleaded a cause in the Court of Session with a great deal of extravagant drollery. Mr. John Swinton[265] said of him upon that occasion, he was not only Rae, but Outré.”

Mr. MacLaurin.

“Swift says, ‘No man keeps me at a distance, but he keeps himself at as great a distance from me.’ This has the appearance as if the man of dignity suffered something, whereas it is just what he wishes. He wishes to be at a distance from vulgar disagreeable people.”

“A friend and neighbour of mine, Mr. H——n, of S——m,[266] is like a fire of a certain species of coal which has a deal of heat but no flame. He is warm, but wants free expression.”

“Lord Monboddo[267] was urging with keen credulity that the Patagonians were really at a medium above eight feet high. ‘Nay,’ said General Melville,[268] ‘I can believe anything great, as I happened in my youth to see a whale cast on shore.’ ‘A whale,’ said I, ‘is a good cast to the imagination.’”

Monboddo, 22nd November, 1778.

“The good humour of some people must be supplied by external and occasional aids, like a pond which depends for water on the rain which falls. Others have a constant flow of good humour within themselves, like a spring well.”

“The beautiful Lady Wallace[269] said in a company that she had had a dream, which from her way of expressing herself was suspected to be a little wanton. She said she could not tell it to the company. She could tell it but to one gentleman at a time. She told it to Mr. Crosbie. ‘It seems,’ said I, ‘you take Mr. Crosbie to be a Joseph, that you tell your dream to him.’ A witty allusion to Joseph’s character, both for interpreting dreams and for chastity.—11th December, 1779.”

“Few characters will bear the examination of reason. You may examine them for curiosity, as you examine bodies with a microscope. But you will be as much disgusted with their gross qualities. You will see them as Swift makes Gulliver see the skins of the ladies of Brobdignag.”

“A poor minister who had come to Edinburgh had his horse arrested. He upon this gave in a petition to the Lords of Session, praying to have his personal estate sequestrated and his horse delivered up to him. The lords granted his petition. George Fergusson[270] found fault with them for giving him his horse. ‘Come, come,’ said I, ‘you need not be angry; there is no kindness in it, for you know the proverb, ‘Set a beggar on horseback, and he’ll ride to the devil.’” 1779.

“I have not an ardent love for parties of pleasure; yet if I am once engaged in them no man is more joyous. The difference between me and one who is the promoter of them is like that between a water-dog and an ordinary dog. I have no instinct prompting me; I never go into the water of my own accord; but throw me in, and you will find I swim excellently.”

“Sir Joshua Reynolds observed that a little wit seemed to go a great way with the ancients, if we might judge from the instances of it which Plutarch has collected. Edmund Burke upon this observed that wit was a commodity which would not keep. Said his brother Richard,[271] ‘If there had been more salt in it, it would have kept.’”

Sir Joshua Reynolds, London,

25th April, 1776.

“The difference between satire in London and in Scotland is this:—In London you are not intimately known, so the satire is thrown at you from a distance, and, however keen, does not tear and mangle you. In London the attack on character is clean boxing. In Scotland it is grappling. They tear your hair, scratch your face, get you down in the mire, and not only hurt but disfigure and debase you.

“A company were talking of Dr. Johnson. Dr. Armstrong, who had a violent prejudice against him, and was in the habit of saying and being praised for saying odd things, was present. Being asked if his dictionary was not very well done, ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘for one man; but there should have been four-and-twenty—a blockhead for every letter.’”

Mr. Dempster.

“Burke, talking to Mr. Dempster of——, a member of Parliament who had deserted his party for court advantages, asked if he had not fallen. ‘Yes,’ said Dempster, ‘on his feet.’”

Mr. Dempster.

“Talking of the great men whom the resistance or rebellion in America had produced, Dempster said, ‘It costs a great deal to raise heroes; they must be raised in a hotbed.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘these have cost a great deal of bark of royal oak, and a good deal of dung too.’”

London, 23rd April, 1779.

“The conversation having turned on Andrew Stuart’s[272] artful defence of the treacherous conduct of his brother to Lord Pigot,[273] I said, ‘He has laid on a thick colouring upon his brother’s character. It would not clean; he has died (sic) it.’”

London, 23rd April, 1779.

“Mr. Seward[274] once mentioned to me, either as a remark of his own or of somebody else’s, that the most agreeable conversation is that which entertains you at the time, but of which you remember no particulars.’ I said to-day I thought otherwise, ‘as it is better both to be entertained at the time and remember good things which have passed. There is the same difference as between making a pleasant voyage and returning home empty, and making a pleasant voyage and returning home richly laden.’”

23rd April, 1779.

“I wrote to Dempster from Edinburgh, 13th December, 1779. I am in good spirits, but you must not expect entertainment from me. The most industrious bee cannot make honey without flowers. But what are the flowers of Edinburgh?”

“Showing Dr. Johnson slight pretty pieces of poetry is like showing him fine delicate shells, which he crushes in handling.”

“In the debate concerning Sir Hugh Palliser[275] in the House of Commons, when it was proposed to address the king to dismiss him, Mr. Wedderburne said, ‘Stained as that gentleman’s flag has been, I should be very sorry to see it hoisted over him as an acting admiral; but I can see no reason why for one unfortunate spot he should be deprived of the last consolation of its waving over his grave.’”

Public Advertiser.

“My wife was angry at a silk cloak for Veronica being ill-made, and said it could not be altered. ‘Then,’ said I, ‘it must be a Persian cloak,’ alluding to the silk called Persian and the unalterable Persian laws.” 1780.

“I told Paoli that Topham Beauclerck[276] found fault with Brompton’s[277] refreshing the Pembroke family picture by Vandyck, and said he had spoiled it by painting it over (which, by the way, Lord Pembroke assured me was not the case). ‘Po, po’ said Paoli (of whom Beauclerc had talked disrespectfully), he has not spoiled it; Beauclerc scratches at everything. He is accustomed to scratch [scratching his head in allusion to Beauclerc’s lousiness], and he’d scratch at the face of Venus.’”

London, 1778.

“Bodens was dining at a house where a neck of roast veal was set down. After eating a bone of it, he was waiting for something else. The lady of the house told him it was their family dinner, and there was nothing else. ‘Nay, madam,’ said Bodens, stuttering, ‘if it be n-neck or n-othing, I’ll have t’other bone.’”

Earl Pembroke,[278] London,

26th April, 1778.

“Spottiswood[279] asked me what was the reason I had given up drinking wine. ‘Because,’ said I, ‘I never could drink it but to excess.’ Said he, ‘An excessive good reason.’”

Dining at Paoli’s, 28th April, 1778.

“When a man talks of his own faults, it is often owing to a consciousness that they cannot be concealed, and others will treat them more severely than he himself does. He thinks others will throw him down, so he had better lye down softly.”

London, April, 1778.

“I can more easily part with a good sum at once than with a number of small sums—with a hundred guineas rather than with two guineas at fifty different times; as one has less pain from having a tooth drawn whole than when it breaks and is pulled out in pieces.”

London, April, 1778.

“When Wilkes was borne on the shoulders of the unruly mob, Burke applied to him what Horace says of Pindar,—‘Fertur numeris legibus solutus.’”

Mr. Wilkes, London, April, 1778.

N.B.—“Dr. Johnson[280] thought this an admirable double pun; and he will seldom allow any vent to that species of witticism.”

“General Paoli was in a boat at Portsmouth at the naval review in 17—. He seated himself close to the helm. They wanted to steer the vessel, and in the hurry of getting to the helm they overturned the general. He said, very pleasantly:—‘Darbord que je me metts au gouvernail ou men chasse.’”

General Paoli, London, 1778.

“At the regatta on the Thames, Sir Joshua Reynolds said to Dunning,[281] ‘I wonder who is the Director of this show?’ Dunning, who delights in the ludicrous in an extreme degree, pointed to a blackguard who was sitting on one of the lamps on Westminster Bridge, and said, ‘There he is.’ Sir Joshua observing a fellow on a wooden post nearer the water answered, ‘I believe you are right, and there is one who has a post under him.’”

Sir Joshua Reynolds, London,

April 25th, 1778.

“Colman[282] had a house opposite to a timber yard. The prospect of logs and deals was but clumsy. Colman said it would soon be covered by some trees planted before his windows. Sir Joshua Reynolds upon this quoted the proverb, ‘You will not be able to see the wood for trees.’”

Sir Joshua Reynolds,

25th April, 1778.

“At Sir Joshua Reynolds’ table —— observed that in the Germanick politicks at present the King of Prussia was a good attorney for the ——. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and he has a good power.’”

2nd May, 1778.

“In London you have an inexhaustible variety of company to enjoy with superficial pleasure, and out of these you may always have a few chosen friends for intimate cordiality. While you have a wide lake to sport in, you may have a stewpond to fatten, cherishing to high friendship, affection, and love, by feeding with attention and kindness. One must have a friend, a wife, or a mistress much in private; must dwell upon them, if that phrase may be used; must by reiterated habits of regard feel the particular satisfaction of intimacy. There must be many coats of the colour laid on to make a body substantial enough to last, for the colour of ordinary agreeable acquaintance is so slight that every feather can brush it off. One should be very careful in choosing for the stewpond. Horace says, ‘Qualem commendes etiam atque etiam respice.’ Such a recommendation is useful to put us on our guard to preserve our character for discernment. It is as much so to make us preserve our own comfort in friendship.”

London, April, 1778.

“If you wish to be very happy with your friend, or wife, or mistress, be with them in London or Bath, or some place where you are both enjoying pleasure; not in the country, where there is dulness and weariness. You may, perhaps, bear up your spirits even in dreary cold darkness in their company, but it is too severe trial to make the experiment. There may be love enough, yet not of such a supreme degree that warms amidst external disadvantages. It is not giving them fair play. Be with them in the sunshine; let mutual gladness beam upon your hearts; and let the ideas of pleasure be associated with the ideas of your being together. If pity be akin to love, it is so to melancholy love. Joy is the fond relation of delightful love of the sweet passion.”

London, April and May, 1778.

“General Paoli one day asked me to read to him something good out of my journal of conversations, which he found me busy recording. I was running my eye over the pages, muttering and long of bringing forth anything, upon which the general observed with his usual metaphorical fancy, finesse d’esprit, ‘Reason says I am a deer lost in a wood. It is difficult to find me.’ I had nothing to answer at the time, but afterwards—I forget how long—I said, ‘The wood is crowded with deer. There are so many good things, one is at a loss which to choose.’”

London, April, 1778.

“Mr. Crosbie was the member of several clubs. I said to him, ‘Crosbie, you are quite a club sawyer.’”

“Dr. Webster was rather late in coming to a dinner which I gave at Fortune’s, 9th July, 1774. His apology was, that just as he was coming out a man arrived who had money to pay him, and he stayed to receive it. ‘You was very right,’ said I, ‘for money is not like fame, that if you fly from it, it will pursue you as your shadow does.’”

“Harry Erskine[283] was observing that a certain agent would take it amiss to have it mentioned that his grandfather was a bellman. ‘I don’t think it,’ said I. ‘A bellman is a respectable title,’ said Peter Murray;[284] ‘it is at least a sounding title.’”

“‘I was wondering one day how many times a lawyer walks backwards and forwards in the outer house[285] in a forenoon,’ said Cosmo Gordon. ‘You must take a compound ratio of his idleness and his velocity.’”

“My wife said it would be much better to give salaries to members of Parliament than to let them try what they can get off their country by places and pensions. Said she, ‘They are like ostlers and postillions, who have no wages, and must support themselves by vails.’”[286]

“One day when causes were called in the Inner House in an irregular manner, and not according to the roll, I said to Crosbie, ‘The English courts run straight out like a fox; ours double like a hare.’”

“The pleasure of seeing Italy chiefly depends on the ideas which a man carries thither. Take an ignorant mechanick or an unlearned country squire to the banks of the Tiber. Show him Mount Soracte, the ruins of Rome, and drive him on to Naples, he will have little enjoyment. But a man whose mind is stored with classical knowledge feels a noble enthusiasm. His ideas uniting with the objects before him catch fire, and a flame is produced as in a chemical process by the mingling of certain substances, while others remain quite tame. A man must have his imagination charged with classical particles.”

“The severe measures taken against the Americans united them firmly by a cement of blood.”

A. Briton, Pub. Advert., 16th Sept., 1775.

“Parliament is now, instead of being the representative of the nation, the echo of the Cabinet; and its acts are only wrappers to the ready prepared pills of the court laboratory for the people to swallow—if they do not stick in their throats.”

A. Briton, Pub. Advert., 16th Sept., 1775.

“I said of a rich man who entertained us luxuriously, that although he was exceedingly ridiculous, we restrained ourselves from talking of him as we might do, lest we should lose his feasts. Said I, ‘he makes our teeth sentinels upon our tongues.’”

“I said that a drunken fellow was not honest. ‘A stick,’ said I ‘kept allways moist becomes rotten.’”

“If a man entertains his company himself, it is a great fatigue. It is blowing a fire with his own breath. Whoever can afford it should have a led captain of strong animal spirits, who may, like perpetual bellows, keep up the social flame.”

“I told Nairne one afternoon that I had been taking an airing with our solicitor-general. Said he, ‘Was you learning to be solicitor?’ ‘No no,’ said I; ‘solicitors-general are non docti, sed facti.’”

1777.

“Poor David Hamilton of Monkland, on account of his vote in Lanarkshire, was made one of the macers of the Court of Session. He had a constant hoarseness, so that he could scarcely be heard when he called the causes and the lawyers, and was indeed as unfit for a crier of court as a man could be. I said he had no voice but at an election.”

“Sandie Maxwell, the wine merchant, told a story very well, and used to heighten it by greater and greater degrees of strong humour, according to the disposition of the company. I said he blew a story to any size, as a man blows figures in a glasshouse. A satirical fellow would say, I warrant he shall not blow his own bottles to too large a size.”

“Lady Di Beauclerk[287] said to me she understood Mrs. V—— was an idiot. I said I was told so too; but when I was introduced to her did not find it be true. ‘Or perhaps,’ said I, ‘her being less an idiot than I had imagined her to be may have made me think she was not an idiot at all.’ ‘I think,’ said Lady Di, ‘she is bad enough, if that be all that a lawyer has to say for her, that she is only less an idiot than he imagined.’ Said I, ‘There are different kinds of idiots as of dogs, water idiots and land idiots, and so on.’ ‘I think,’ said Lady Di, ‘that is worth writing down.’”

Richmond, 27th April, 1781.

“Lady Di Beauclerk told me that Langton had never been to see her since she came to Richmond, his head was so full of the militia and Greek. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘madam, he is of such a length, he is awkward, and not easily moved.’ ‘But,’ said she, ‘if he had laid himself at his length, his feet had been in London, and his head might have been here eodem die.’”

“Lord Chesterfield could indulge himself in making any sort of pun at a time. Dr. Barnard, now Bishop of Killaloe, was standing by his lordship in the pump-room at Bath, when the late Duchess of Northumberland’s father was brought in a chair very unwieldy. The musick was playing. My lord said to Barnard, ‘We have a new sort of instrument this morning—a dull Seymour[288] (dulcimer).’”

From Dr. Barnard, London, 1781.

“Parnell[289] was miserably addicted to drinking. He could not refrain even the morning that Swift introduced him to Lord Oxford.[290] My lord pressed through the crowd to get to Parnell. But he soon perceived his situation. He in a little said to Swift, ‘your friend, I fear, is not very well.’ Swift answered, ‘He is troubled with a great shaking.’ ‘I am sorry,’ said the Earl, ‘that he should have such a distemper, but especially that it should attack him in the morning.’”

From Dr. Barnard, Bishop of Killaloe,

who had it from Dr. Delany.

“In spring, 1781, Dr. Franklin[291] wrote from Paris to a freind in London, with indignation against one who had been entrusted with money belonging to the American prisoners, and had run off with it. One expression in his letters was singularly strong, and indeed wild:—‘If that fellow is not damned, it is not worth while to keep a devil.’”

Mr. Suard.[292]

“Lord Foley,[293] whose extravagance frequently brought his creditors upon him so as to have executions in his house, was rallying George Selwyn on his particular curiosity for spectacles of death. ‘You go,’ said he, ‘I understand, to see all executions.’ ‘No my lord,’ answered George, ‘I don’t go to see your executions.’”

Mr. Suard.

“The Honourable Mrs. Stuart[294] was one day talking to me with just severity against drunkenness (the sin which doth most easily beset me). I attempted to apologise, and said that intoxication might happen at a time to any man. ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘to any man but a Scotsman, for what with another man is an accident is in him a habit.’”

“At Sir John Dick’s, Sunday, 8th May, 1785, I made the gentlemen sit and drink out some capital old hock after the ladies left us. When I came into the drawing-room, and was seated by the lady of Sir Matthew White Ridley,[295] she said to me, ‘We ladies don’t like you when you have drunk a bottle of hock, because you then tell us only plain truth.’ ‘Bravo!’ cried I; ‘Lady Ridley, this shall go into my Boswelliana. It is one of the best bon mots I have heard for a long time. It goes deep into human nature.’”

“M. D’Ankerville (9th May, 1785) at General Paoli’s paid me the compliment that I was the man of genius who had the best heart he had ever known.”

“The king cannot give to Langton because he is not in the political sphere. He cannot take a handful of the gold upon the faro table, and give it to any man, however worthy, who is only looking on or stalking round the room. Let him play, let him part, and take his chance. The king is but the marker at the great billiard-table of the state. He can mark a man three, four, or five, or whatever number according to his play, and if he goes off the table into opposition, can rub out the chalk; like the marker, he can give what money he has for himself as he pleases, and employ his own tailor or shoemaker, and buy his own snuff and ballads, take a walk or a ride at his idle hours where he pleases.”

“The first time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds’s, Johnson touched him on the shoulder and said, ‘Le grande Burke.’”

“My journal is ready; it is in the larder, only to be sent to the kitchen, or perhaps trussed and larded a little.”

“Mrs. Cosway[296] said she had often expressed a wish to see me. General (Paoli) did not tell me this. He has been affraid of making me too vain and turning the head of his friend. No, he knows the value of things—it was not worth telling.”

“At Mr. Aubrey’s, 19th April, Wilkes and I hard at it. I warm on monarchy. ‘Po, your’n old Tory.’ Boswell. ‘And you’re a new Tory. Let that stand for that.’”

“I mentioned my having been in Tothill Fields Bridewell; how the keeper had let me in, &c. Wilkes, ‘I don’t wonder at your getting in, but that you got out.’ Bos. ‘O no, I have no propensity to be a jail-bird; I never had the honour you have had[297] [he looking a little disconcerted, as the pill rather too strong]—I mean being Lord Mayor of London; I mean the golden chain. I never had the honour to have a chain of any sort.’”

“‘I’ll have some of the other soup too. Were there a hundred soups, I should eat of them all.’ Mrs. Aubrey (very pleasantly): ‘I am sorry ours comes so far short of your number.’”

“Old Hutton[298] talked of men of phlegm and men of fancy. Said H., ‘Men of phlegm punish the beef, the solid parts of dinner; men of fancy, the dessert.’ ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘men of fancy would have nothing to work upon were there not men of phlegm. Men of phlegm perform the actions, compile the histories, discover the arts and sciences upon which poetry is founded.’”

“Dr. Burney[299] said he hoped I was now come to plant myself in London. ‘I’ll bring the watering pan,’ said he.”

“I told Lord Galloway,[300] April, 1785, that I called Lord Daer Darius.[301] ‘What,’ said he, ‘do you think him the son of Cyrus?’ laughing at Lord Selkirk. I did not think he’d have said this, though a distinguished law lord.”

“When Pitt the second made his first appearance in the House of Commons in opposition to Fox, Gibbon[302] said, ‘There is a beautiful painted pinnace just going to be run down by a black collier.’ He never was more mistaken. Pitt has more forcible indignation in him than Fox.”

Wilkes.

“As a playful instance of the proverb, I said, ‘Every man has his price. Lord Shelburne[303] has his price [meaning Dr. Price],[304] whom I love and call Pretium affectionis.’”

Monday, 18th April, 1785, at

Dr. Brocklesby’s.[305]

“General Paoli said more good things than almost anybody, yet he talks of them with contempt. I told him he had always bon mots about him, which he used like footballs—he threw them down and gave them a kick.” 24th April, 1785.

“April, 1785, at Mr. Osborne’s. Sir Joseph Banks told me he was sure he had a soul. He felt it high within him, as a woman does a child.”

“25th April, 1785. Dining on guard with Colonel Lord Cathcart,[306] Cataline was mentioned. ‘Who was he?’ said George[307] Hanger, ‘for I know no ancient history.’ ‘I’ll tell you what he was,’ said Colonel Tarleton. ‘Alieni cupidus, sui profusus.’ ‘Very fair!’ said Hanger. In a little talking of fellows going carelessly to execution, Tarleton said, ‘We’re told Sir Thomas More smiled all the way.’”

“Mrs. Heron[308] being at her parish church, the name of the minister being Stot,[309] as it was a very bad day, and the wind and rain were driving through the windows, a lady observed that it was like a guarde mange. ‘I think so too, madam,’ said she; ‘but if that were the case I should think it would be better to have a dead stot than a living one.’”

From herself.

“Houstoun Stewart[310] was one night in Drury Lane playhouse very shabbily dressed. A surly-looking, boorish fellow comes up to him: ‘Pray, sir, whose seat do you keep?’ Houstoun replied with an ironical complaisance, ‘Yours, sir.’ As he was rising the fellow observed his sword, was much confused, and asked ten thousand pardons. ‘From this,’ says Stewart, ‘we see the value of a sword. Had I wanted it I might have been taken for a real footman.’”

Mr. G. Goldie.

“A comical fellow was telling that Raploch sat upon turkey eggs and brought out birds, which made the company laugh extremely. ‘Stay, stay, gentlemen!’ says Harry Barclay;[311] ‘you don’t know that these turkeys are all my cousins german, for Raploch is my uncle.’”

Lady Kames.[312]

“A gentleman was one night talking of the Nile. An ignorant boobie who was present asked him with great eagerness, ‘Pray, what fellow was that?’ ‘Why, troth, sir,’ says he, ‘it was a fellow that took a conceit to hide his head so that it could not be found again.’”

Mrs. Heron.

“A dog one day jumped upon Miss Bruce[313] of Kinross’s lap at a tea-table. ‘I wonder,’ says she, ‘if dogs can see anything particularly agreeable about me?’ ‘Indeed, madam,’ replied a gentleman, ‘he would be a very sad dog that did not.’”

Mrs. G. Goldie.

“Mr. Heron[314] was one day reproving a servant at table for negligence. ‘What have you been thinking of, Peter, that you have forgot spoons?’ ‘I suppose, my dear,’ says his lady, ‘that he has been thinking of knives and forks.’”

I was present.

“We are apt to imagine that the Turks are a brutal sort of people, totally given up to gross sensuality, and altogether void of gay fancy or the finer feelings. As an instance to the contrary, my Lord Galloway tells that he was sitting at Constantinople with a Turkish gentleman, who, although a true Mussulman, took a glass of wine. The custom there is not for a company to drink all at once, like a regiment going through their evolutions, but as the intention of drinking is to cheer the spirits, they take a cup of the liquor which stands before them just as they feel themselves in need of it. This Turk, after having taken three or four bumpers of champagne, pointed to a lamp which hung above their heads, as they never use candles. ‘This,’ says he, ‘my lord, is to me as the oil is to that lamp.’ A pretty allusion, as if it lighted him up.”

Lord Kenmore.[315]

“My lord having shown to the same gentleman a picture of Lady Garlies,[316] he looked at it a long time very attentively, and then asked my lord, with a good deal of emotion, whose picture it was. My lord answered that it was the picture of his lady, who had died just before he left his native country. ‘My lord,’ said the Turk, ‘you have the strongest constitution, and have a chance to live longer than any man I ever met with.’ And being asked his reason for saying so, ‘Because, my lord, you have been able to survive so fine a woman.’ A noble expression of a feeling heart.”

Lord Kenmore.

“Silinger, a gentleman of Ireland, remarkable for humour and spirit, had got himself drunk one night, and had broke windows in St. James’s Street. Next morning at White’s they were all talking of and abusing him most confoundedly. Lord Coke,[317] a most worthless fellow, stood up with great warmth for Mr. Silinger, who a little after came in! ‘Silinger,’ cried my lord, ‘you are much obliged to me this morning, for I have been losing my character in defence of yours.’ ‘Have you so, my lord?’ says he, ‘then you are much obliged to me, for you have lost the worst character in all England.’”

Mr. Murray, of Broughtoun.

“Colonel Chartres,[318] who knew mankind too well to be ignorant of the power of flattery, said to John,[319] Duke of Argyle, ‘Good heaven, my lord, what would I give to have your character! I would give ten thousand pounds.’ ‘Indeed, Chartres,’ replied the duke, ‘it would be the worst bargain you ever made, for you would lose it again in a day.’”

Lord Kames.

“A gentleman was one day making that common serious reflection, ‘Time runs.’ ‘Very well,’ replied Boswell, ‘let it run there, for I am sure I shall never try to pursue it.’”

“Lady Katie Murray[320] having shown her full-length portrait to Lord Eglintoune, ‘O such vanity, such vanity!’ cried he, ‘do you really take that for you?’ ‘Indeed, my lord,’ says she, Mr. Reynolds says that it is me; so I can’t help it.’”

From herself.

“Colonel Folly came to wait upon old Jerviswood,[321] who was very deaf; and being very finically dressed, the old gentleman asked with great curiosity, ‘Who’s that? who’s that?’ and being answered, Colonel Folly, ‘I see,’ says he, ‘he’s a fool, but what is his name?’”

Lord Auchinleck.

“Sir Alexander Dick passed an evening at Rome with a number of gentlemen, who had been obliged to fly Scotland on account of the rebellion, 1715. One of them sung ‘The Broom of the Cowdenknowes,’[322] with which the whole company were so much affected as to burst into tears and cry with great bitterness.”

From himself.

“When John McKie[323] was in Prussia, one of the sentinels petitioned him and some other gentlemen who were with him for their charity to a poor Briton, who had been seized by the advanced guards while in the Dutch service, and had now but very poor pay. ‘Pray, sir,’ said Mr. McKie, ‘what is your name?’ ‘John McKie, sir,’ said he, ‘from the Laird of Balgowan’s estate, in the parish of Monigaff, in Galloway.’ Surprised and pleased at the discovery, they collected all the silver they had about them and threw to him.”

Sir Robert Maxwell, 3rd hand.

“Jerviswood carried his whole family to travel with him through Italy. The first night of their being in Rome they went to an assembly, and were surprised to find them dancing to the tune of ‘The Lads of Dunse.’ The history of the thing was this:—the Italians have no country dances; but Miss Edwin, sister to Lady Charlotte’s husband, was very fond of the Scots country dances, and as her family were opulent people when they were abroad, she had influence enough with the Italians to introduce these dances, which they still remain fond of.”

Lord Kames.

“It is a tradition believed in the family of Carnwath[324] that one of the old earls, who was a very zealous Catholic, took it into his head to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. As he was entering one of the gates of Constantinople he saw a woman sitting on a balcony spinning and singing, ‘O the broom,’ &c.”

Lord Kenmore.[325]

“A man had heard that Dempster was very clever, and therefore expected that he could say nothing but good things. Being brought acquainted, Mr. Dempster said to him with much politeness, ‘I hope, sir, your lady and family are well.’ ‘Ay, ay, man,’ said he, ‘pray where is the great wit in that speech?’”

Lady Ann Erskine.

“A gentleman was complaining that he had done good to another who had made him no grateful return. ‘Well, well,’ said Boswell, ‘you are so far lucky, that if you did good to your neighbour you have your reward, whether he will or not.’”

“Boswell and John Home met with a man in their walk one morning, who said that he was a hundred and three. ‘What a stupid fellow,’ said Boswell, ‘must that be who has lived so long!’”

“Boswell was one day complaining that he was sometimes dull. ‘Yes, yes,’ cried Lord Kames, ‘aliquando dormitat Homerus’ (Homer sometimes nods). Boswell being too much elated with this, my lord added, ‘Indeed, sir, it is the only chance you had of resembling Homer.’”

“A countryman came one day and told Lady Machermore,[326] ‘Oh, madam, you have lost a great enemy this morning—the auld bear of Kirouchtree’s dead.’ ‘Ay, ay,’ says she, ‘the auld Heron dead? give the honest man a dram.’ The fellow took his dram very contentedly, and then said, ‘Na, God be thanked, madam, Heron’s not dead, for I mean the old boar-sow that used to destroy your potatoes.’”

Mr. Heron.

“At an execution in the Grass Mercat, Boswell was observing that if you will consider it abstractly there is nothing terrible in it. ‘No doubt, sir,’ replied Mr. Love, ‘if you will abstract everything terrible that it has about it, nothing terrible will remain.’”

“When Lord Galloway was in Constantinople, an old Turk of sixty was dining one day with a company of the English, with whose ease and freedom and mirth he was so much transported as to exclaim, ‘Good God, am I come to this age, and have lived but one day!’”

Lord Galloway.

“Lord Mark Ker[327] was playing at backgammon with Lord Stair in a coffee-house in London; an impudent fellow was saying some rude things against Scotland. ‘Come, my Lord Stair,’ said Lord Mark, ‘let us have a throw of the dice, which of us two kicks this scoundrel down-stairs.’ Lord Stair had the highest throw, and accordingly used the fellow as he deserved. ‘Well,’ said Lord Mark, ‘I allways am unlucky at play.’”

Lord Auchinleck.

“Montgomerie,[328] of Skermorly, was Provost of Glasgow. A vain, haughty man, Jacobie Corbet,[329] a merchant, and a noted man for humour, accosted him one day in the familiar style of ‘How are you, Hugh?’ ‘Hugh, sir?’ said he, ‘is that a proper way of talking to the Lord Provost of Glasgow?—Officer, take this fellow to prison directly.’ It was accordingly done. Some time after commissions for justices of the peace came down, and amongst the rest was one for —— Montgomerie, of Skermorly. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘this is pretty odd. I should think the Queen might have been better acquainted with my name.’ ‘Indeed,’ replied Corbet, ‘I dare say she remembered your name, but she knew that if she called you Hugh she would have got the Tolbooth.’”

Lord Auchinleck.

“When Campbell,[330] of Shawfield, returned with all his riches to Glasgow, everybody flocked about him to pay their respects except Corbet, with whom he had served his apprenticeship, who never troubled his head or went near him. Shawfield, concerned at this, and willing to ingratiate himself with everybody, came up to him as he was walking before his shop. ‘Oh, my good old friend, Jacobie Corbet, I rejoice to see you. I protest I know no odds upon you these twenty years.’ ‘Say you so, Daniel?’ cried he, ‘but I know a very great odds upon you; you came here at first wanting bretches, and now you are riding a coach and six.’”

Lord Auchinleck.

“Colonel Irwin[331] was dancing down a country dance at Bath, when somebody said, ‘I hope Mrs. Irwin is well.’ The colonel, dancing on, bowed and smiled and replied, ‘Dead a fortnight,—dead a fortnight.’”

Lord Kelly.

“Sanderson, the Quaker, and Lady Galloway, had a violent dispute about religion. ‘Well, well, Catherine,’[332] said he, ‘you have but an Act of Parliament for your religion; I have the same for mine.’”

Lord Galloway.

“Lady Garlies[333] was making a cap to herself one evening. Says old Galloway, with much slyness, ‘If you were a milliner, madam, you would have plenty of business.’ ‘Yes,’ said Garlies, one way or t’other.’”

I was present.

“A young extravagant dog had contrived to swell his bills prodigiously, and among other articles he had this:—‘To an entertainment to my friends the night before I left Oxford, £40.’ ‘My dear Tom,’ said his father, ‘I rejoice to find you so fortunate a man, for by what I can see you have a greater number of friends than any man in England.’”

Mr. Allan Whitefoord.[334]

“A company of strolling players were rehearsing ‘Macbeth,’ and singing the chorus of ‘We fly by night.’ ‘Oh,’ cried the landlord, who overheard them, ‘I’ll take care of that;’ and immediately called a constable to lay hold of them.”

Mr. Love.

“As Lord Mark Ker was going one night to pay a visit, one of his chairmen jostled a gentleman upon the street, who immediately knocked him down. Lord Mark came out of his chair, and as the fellow recovered himself, he desired the gentleman to chastise him for his insolence, which he declined. ‘Why, then, sir,’ said Lord Mark, ‘you will excuse me for taking notice of you for knocking down my chairman,’ and caned him most heartily.”

Lord Galloway.

“Sir William Maxwell of Springkell[335] said that Lord Fife[336] and Miss Willy[337] Maxwell resembled one another, for they had both bought their titles dear enough.”

I was present.

“Whenever a young man was recommended to old Lord Stormont[338] for one of his kirks, he used allways to ask, ‘Is he good-natured in his drink?’ and if that was the case he said he should be his man.”

Sir John Douglas.

“Lady Elibank[339] was regretting that old families should sink. Sir William Baird of Newbyth,[340] an ugly-looking dog, was there, who laughed and said, ‘What is all that stuff about old families? All nonsense! I should be glad to know who is the representative of Nebuchadnezzar’s family?’ This Lord Elibank, then a boy, replied, ‘You, sir, and he got you when he was eating grass with the beasts of the field.’”

Sir William Maxwell.

“At a hunters’ meeting at Dumfries, Mr. Riddle[341] of Glenriddle came up to the Duke of Hamilton,[342] with his hand in his coat pocket. ‘Will your Grace crack any walnuts?’ The duke, who had lost his teeth, took it as an affront, and was very sulky.”

Sir William Maxwell.

“When this story was told, somebody said, ‘That’s nuts for B[oswell].’”

“When Sir Peter Frazer of Dores[343] brought home his lady to the Highlands, he said to his English coachman, ‘All these hills are mine, John.’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ said he, ‘they’re all not worth a groat. I would not take off my hat and thank God Almighty for all this part of the creation.’ Just as he spoke the coach overturned.”

Sir William Maxwell.

“When Lord Hyndford[344] was ambassador at the court of Berlin, the King of Prussia said to him one morning at the levee, ‘Do you know, my lord, that two of my soldiers have this morning died of the English distemper? they have hanged themselves.’ ‘True, sire,’ replied Lord Hyndford; ‘but it was for a very different reason. Suicide amongst our people is occasioned by an over-fulness; but I am told that these fellows hanged themselves because they were dying of hunger.’”

Lord Auchinleck.

“Lord Dunmore[345] was telling Lord Cassillis[346] that his little child was beginning to speak, and could allready say Dun. ‘Well, my lord,’ said he, ‘it will say more by and by.’”

From himself.

“Colonel Murray was imposing on some ignorant young fellow at play. Lord Mark Ker said nobody but a scoundrel and a villain would do so. Murray came to Lord Mark, and asked him if he had said so. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘to the best of my remembrance these were my words. I am not sure but I likewise added rascal.’”

Sir W. Maxwell.

“A fellow was swearing most terribly in a coffee-house. Colonel Forrester came up to him. ‘Pray sir, what entitles you to swear and blaspheme at this rate?’ ‘Eh, colonel,’ said he, ‘What! are you reproving me for it? I’m sure you used to swear as much as any man.’ ‘Yes sir,’ said he, ‘when it was the fashion. But now it is only practised by porters and chairmen. I left it off as below a gentleman.’”

Mr. Goldie, of Hoddam.

“Cosmo Alexander[347] the painter, upon a slight acquaintance with a Roman Catholic lady, took her out to dance in the Edinburgh assembly, and as he was figuring away in black velvet with various gesticulations, ‘Lord Elibank,’ asked Sir William Maxwell, ‘who’s that who dances?’ Being told Mr. Alexander the painter, ‘Upon my word,’ said his lordship, ‘a very picturesque minuet.’”

Sir William Maxwell.

“The Duke of Newcastle[348] had a very mixed character, was not deficient in parts, but was remarkable for being inattentive, confused, and hurried. Lord Chesterfield said he was like a man who had lost half an hour in the morning and was running about all the day, in order to find it again.”

Lord Kames.

“Lady——, a woman of low birth, whose father and uncle had both been strung at Tyburn, asked George Selwyn[349] to come and see an elegant room which she was fitting up at her house in Pall Mall. George, observing some vacant places for pictures, inquired what she was to put there. She said she intended to hang some family pictures there. ‘O, madam’ replied he, ‘I thought all your ladyship’s family had been hanged already.’”

Captain Erskine.

“The Laird of Macfarlane[350] was maintaining one day that the highlands was much better country than Fife, and that Kelly Law would make no figure among the hills in his country. ‘I grant you,’ said Captain Erskine, ‘it would make but a contemptible figure as a hill, but it would make an admirable plain.’”

From Captain Erskine.

“An Irish servant told his master that his best horse had fallen over a precipice. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘there is no help for it; let us at least save something; go directly and skin him, and come quickly back.’ The fellow, being very long of returning, was asked what he had been about. ‘An’t please your honour,’ said he, ‘the horse run so fast, that it was three hours before I could overtake him to get the skin off.’”

Lady Betty Macfarlane.[351]

“The same gentleman sent his servant one dark night with a friend to conduct him through a bad step in the road. His friend fell into the very middle of the mire. The servant being asked upon his return if he had shown the gentleman the hole, ‘Indeed sir,’ said he, ‘he did not need to be shown it, for he found it himself.’”

Lady Betty Macfarlane.

“A countryman was carrying a hare over his shoulder in the streets. A waggish young fellow accosted him thus:—‘Pray sir, is that your own hare, or a wig?’”

Captain Erskine.

“When Mr. Love was engaged for Drury Lane, he went to Covent Garden and saw Shuter[352] play Falstaff the night before he appeared in that character himself. After the play was over, Mr. Shuter said, ‘He has satisfied me very much—because he satisfied nobody else.’”

From himself.

“The Duke de Nivernois[353] is a man of fine parts and address, but a very diminutive figure. When he made his appearance in London in the year 1762, Charles Townshend said, ‘It is impossible this can be an ambassador, for he has not even the preliminaries of a man.’”

Lord Kelly.

“Eating supper is nothing. ’Tis drinking supper hurts a man.”

29th May, 1783.

“Mr. Burke said at Chelsea College dinner, a poor French cook was persecuted by the mob at Edinburgh as a Papist. Said young Burke, ‘They had taken him for a frier!’”

“At Chelsea College dinner, 29th May, 1783, Sir George Howard,[354] the Governor, drank to the memory of Charles the Second, the founder; and then to the glorious and immortal memory of William the Third, its last royal benefactor. Mr. Burke, who used to joke with Mr. Boswell as a friend to the House of Stewart, observed that no notice had been taken of James the Second, whose name is still inscribed upon the college as a benefactor. Mr. Boswell then said, merely from the connection of the word medio with that prince as the middle king who had promoted that institution, ‘Sir George, you are unmindful of medio tutissimus ibis.’ Sir George answered, very justly, ‘That is a maxim I think he did not understand.’”

“My friends are to me like the cinnamon tree, which produces nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon; not only do I get wisdom and worth out of them, but amusement. I use them as the Chinese do their animals; nothing is lost; there a very good dish is made of the poorest parts. So I make the follies of my friends serve as a dessert after their valuable qualities.”

“It is very disagreeable to hear a man going about a subject and about it, and hesitating, while one perceives what he means to say. Mental stammering hurts one as much as a stammering in speech.”

Mrs. Boscawen,[355] 17th May, 1784.

“I was observing at Mr. Dilly’s how terrible an idea it was when Mr. Perry was going to the East Indies for ten years in quest of languages. Dr. Johnson said, with his wonderful shrewdness, ‘He went to the East Indies. The question is, what did he go from?’”

“My only objection to living in London is that there is too much space and too little time.”

27th May 1784.

“I said Suard had a feeble venom spit-spit.”

1784.

“I told General Paoli that Dr. Johnson said Langton was first a talking man—then he would be a silent man. ‘All upon system, to be distinguished,’ said the General. ‘He wanted to go into the cave of Trophonius, and he went into that of Polyphemus’ (alluding to his being a disciple of Dr. Johnson).”

1784.

“My son Alexander,[356] one day in December [1783], when in a passion at his sister Phemie for something she had said, used this strong expression,—‘Phemie, if your tongue be not cut out, it will soon be full of lies.’”

1784.

“January 7. He understood that there was a violent opposition to the king; and he imagined Sir Philip Ainslie[357] was on that side. He said the king should send messengers to discover all that are against him. That would soon turn Sir Philip Ainslie’s brain right.”

“January 10. He complained that his brother James beat him. Grange said he should not mind him, as he was but a child. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘but he must not be a big man to me’ (alluding to the weight of his blows).”

“The difference between an ancient family is sometimes not visible. Above the ground the tree may be the same. The ancient has only deeper roots, which only antiquarian diggers observe. Yet from the deep roots there are plants of a more stately air, so that in general the difference appears even in the stem and branches; sometimes, indeed, by rich and happy culture, the new ones will look almost as well.”

“In a book of science or of general information, one may introduce an eloquent sentence, if not too flighty; or, when an elevated thought occurs stand on tiptoe, but not rise from the ground. I made this remark to Mr. Lumsden, while reading a passage of higher tone in his account of Rome. It will also apply to Sir John Pringle’s[358] Discourses before the Royal Society.”

“A man begged sixpence from a gentleman and was refused. With a melancholy look he said, ‘Well, then, I know what to do.’ The gentleman struck with this, and dreaming the poor man meant to kill himself, gave him the sixpence, and then asked him, ‘What would you do?’ ‘Why, sir,’ said he, ‘I should be obliged to work.’”

Dr. Webster.

“Peter Boyle[359] has so much milk of temper one can hardly be angry with him. But even milk will offend, when it goes down the wrong throat.”

“Asparagus is like gentility; it cannot be brought to the table till several generations from the dunghill.”

“The arsenic sophistry of Gibbon—sweet and poisonous.”

“The minds of some men are like a dark cellar—their knowledge lies concealed; while the minds of others are all sunshine and mirror, and reflect all that they read or hear in a lively manner.”

“Sir John Wemyss[360] calling on R. Colville[361] in the abbey a few weeks after losing £500 by him, was offered by him a tune on the fiddle. ‘Stay,’ said Sir John, ‘till the rest of your creditors get a share.’”

“‘Who’s there?’ said the Lord President Arniston, one morning at breakfast, in winter, 1782-3; ‘I dinna see.’ John Swinton, then a candidate for a gown, courteously said, ‘The light is in your lordship’s eyes.’ ‘No, John,’ said he, ‘the light’s out of my e’en.’”

“Burke said that it was of great consequence to have a British peerage, for each generation is born in a great theatre where he may display his talents. I told this to General Paoli, who was of a different opinion. ‘It is true,’ said the general, he is born in a great theatre, but he is applauded before he acts.’”

“When it was asked in India why Sir Thomas Rumbold’s[362] acquisition of wealth made more noise than that of others, a black man said, ‘Others pluck one feather, and one feather from the fowl, and the fowl do not make noise; but Rumbold tear all the feathers all at once, and the fowl cry Zua, Zua.’”

Mr. Dempster.

“General Paoli said of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose deafness made him use a trumpet, ‘He has a horn only at one ear; if he had one at both he would be a Jupiter.’”

6th May, 1781.

“I told young Burke that Wilkes said he was an enemy to General Paoli from the natural antipathy of good to bad. ‘Which is the bad?’ said Burke.”

6th May, 1781.

“General Paoli described a blue-stocking meeting very well:—Here, four or five old ladies talking formally, and a priest (Dr. Barnard, Provost of Eton), with a wig like the globe, sitting in the middle, as if he were confessing them.’”

May, 1781.

“Mrs. Thrale spoke slightingly of Paradise.[363] She said, ‘I never heard him say anything, but my fader vos not a Greek, but my moder was a Greek.’ Young Burke and I thought her too severe; ‘but,’ said young Burke, ‘it seems she does not find the tree of knowledge in Paradise.’”

6th May, 1781.

“Lady Preston[364] had catched cold by going to some meeting. Capt. Brisbane[365] wrote to Lady Maxwell,[366] ‘Some ladies have a zeal, I do not say without knowledge, but without constitution to support it.’”

“When Wilkes and I sat together, each glass of wine produced a flash of wit, like gunpowder thrown into the fire—Puff! puff!”

“Lord Mountstuart said at J. R. McKye’s, 30th April, 1783, that it was observed I was like Charles Fox. ‘I have been told so,’ said I. ‘You’re much uglier,’ said Col. James Stuart, with his sly drollery. I turned to him, full as sly and as droll: ‘Does your wife think so, Colonel James?’ Young Burke said, ‘Here was less meant than meets the ear.’”

“Mr. Charles Cochrane[367] was applied to requesting freestone to erect a monument at Falkirk to Sir Harry Monro,[368] who was killed at the battle there, fighting against Prince Charles in 1745. Mr. Cochrane very readily granted the request, and said he should be very glad to give stones for burying all the Whigs in Scotland.”

From Mr. Stobie, Mr. Cochrane’s agent.

“One who boasted of being an infidel said to Mr. Allan Logan that he wished much to see a spirit, but had in vain visited churchyards and every other place where he had the best chance. Mr. Logan, who was a very serious and even superstitious and credulous believer, answered, ‘Why, man, you was a great fool for making the experiment, and you would have the devil to be as great a fool as yourself. He is sure of you at present, and you would have him to appear to you, that you might be convinced of a future state and escape him? No, no; he is too wise for that.’”

1st Oct., 1780, from the Rev. Mr. Rolland[369] of Culross.

“The Earl of Dumfries,[370] in Charles the Second’s time, was a hard-hearted, unfeeling father. His son, Lord Crichton, had gone to Edinburgh, foolishly, as he thought. He died there, and his corpse was brought home to be buried in the family vault. As the earl saw the hearse from his window he said, ‘Ay, ay, Charles, thou went to Edinburgh without an errand; I think thou hast got one to bring thee back again.’ My father, who was always averse to my going to London, often told this story before me. I said one day of the earl, ‘What a barbarian!’”

“Mr. Beauclerc told Dr. Johnson that Dr. James[371] said to him he knew more Greek than Mr. Walmsley.[372] ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘Dr. James did not know enough of Greek to be sensible of his ignorance of the language. Walmsley did.’”

Mr. Langton.

“A certain young clergyman used to come about Dr. Johnson. The Doctor said it vexed him to be in his company, his ignorance was so hopeless. ‘Sir,’ said Mr. Langton, ‘his coming about you shows he wishes to help his ignorance.’ ‘Sir,’ said the Doctor, ‘his ignorance is so great, I am afraid to show him the bottom of it.’”

Mr. Langton.

“To account for the common remark that the more a man advances in knowledge, the less he seems to himself to know, Mr. Burke said that what is in itself infinite, there is a larger circle without the first, and a larger without the next, and so on.”

Young Mr. Burke.

“Dr. Johnson desired me to tell Sheridan[373] he’d be glad to see him and shake hands with him. I said Sheridan was unwilling to come, as he never could forget the attack —— half told him. ‘But it was wrong to keep up resentment so long,’ said the Doctor; ‘the truth is, he knows I despise his character; ’tis not all resentment; partly out of habit, and rather disgust, as at a drug that has made him sick.’”

“Lady Townshend[374] sent to Mr. Winnington for his coach and six horses one day. He asked her afterwards if they came in proper time, and her ladyship was pleased with them. ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘I only invited them to dine. I wished they should have one good dinner, so I ordered them plenty of hay and straw.’”

Mr. Langton.

“I said it was a strange thing that Short,[375] the famous telescope maker in London, left a legacy of a thousand pounds to Lady Mary Douglas, who had no need of money, when he had a number of poor relations. Thomas Earl of Kelly said upon this, ‘He was not a reflecting telescope maker.’”

“It was mentioned at Lady Colville’s[376] that Mrs. C., of S., whose husband was a very big man, had once been very fond of Colonel M., and had suffered much from his forsaking her. ‘What!’ said a lady; ‘she seems to like her husband so well, that I could not believe she was ever fond of any other man.’ ‘She was very fond of another man,’ said I. ‘But her husband smothered that passion.’” 1783.

“At a dinner at Mr. Crosbie’s, when the company were very merry, the Rev. Dr. Webster told them he was sorry to go away so early, but was obliged to catch the tide, to cross the Frith of Forth to Fife. ‘Better stay a little,’ said Thomas Earl of Kelly,[377] ‘till you be half seas over.’”

Rev. Dr. Webster.

“Harry Erskine and another advocate, had written papers in a cause before Lord Westhall.[378] They thought them very good papers. But a clerk came to Mr. Erskine with a message that ‘My Lord had read the papers, and could not understand them, and he would send a note of what he wanted.’ ‘Make my compliments to his lordship,’ said Erskine, ‘and tell him (pointing to his forehead) I have none to spare.’”

From Mr. Erskine himself.

“On the 2nd December, 1782, I went to dine at Walker’s tavern with a committee of the Presbytery of Edinburgh, who were taking evidence in a criminal process—the heritors of Carsphairn[379] against Mr. Affleck, who had a presentation to that parish. The agent for the heritors was the entertainer. I was asked to take the head of the table thus:—‘Mr. Boswell, you’ll take this end.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘the Moderator will sit there.’ ‘Then you’ll take this end,’ the foot of the table. ‘No,’ said I, pointing to the agent. I placed myself about the middle of the table, and said, ‘I have no end in view but a good dinner.’ Said the Rev. Mr. Brown,[380] of Edinburgh, ‘The end is lawful if the means be good.’”

“Miss Leslie, General Leslie’s[381] daughter, had a pretty necklace, she obligingly took it off, and let me look at it. I said, ‘It is pretty, even when it’s off.’”

12th Nov., 1782.

“Sir James Johnstone[382] asked me if turning off nominal and fictitious voters now upon the roll would not be an act of violence. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it would be an act of violence. But it would be an act of violence like turning thieves out of your house.’”

12th Nov., 1782.

“Mr. Keith,[383] the envoy, was in company with a good Highland lady, some of whose sons had been successful in the army. The company were talking of putting their sons to different professions. Said she, with great earnestness, ‘If I had twenty sons, I would put them all to the sword.’”

From his eldest daughter, 12th Nov., 1782.[384]

“I said Lord Monboddo chose to vary Horace’s Mens sana in corpore sano, and to have mens insana incorpore sano; for his endeavour is to keep his mind wild and his body robust.”

12th Nov., 1782.

“Langton said he could not laugh at Burke’s wit. The Bishop of Killaloe said, ‘I’ll tell you a story: Colonel Lutterel was at the house of a gentleman who insisted on his drinking more than he chose, and locked the door on him. The colonel fell upon a contrivance to get off which succeeded. “Come,” said the gentleman, “fill your glass, you must drink;” “Sir,” said the colonel, “I don’t like your wine.” The gentleman had nothing to say.’”

27th May, 1783.

“Langton said Burke hammered his wit upon an anvil, and the iron was cold. There were no sparks flashing and flying all about. Said the Bishop of Killaloe,[385] ‘I don’t think the iron is cold, but Burke is not so much a smith as he is a chymist, he analyzes a word, he decomposes it, and brings out all its different^meaning senses.’”

27th May, 1783.

“I said to General Paoli, it was wonderful how much Corsica had done for me, how far I had got in the world by having been there. I had got upon a rock in Corsica and jumped into the middle of life.”

27th May, 1783.

“It was observed by somebody that Lord Dundonald attended to the church very ill. Miss Preston said that their two black servants were generally there every Sunday,—‘Ay,’ said Mr. Charles Preston, ‘but two blacks don’t make a white.’”

Valley Field, 17th October, 1778.