[139] Richardson, writing on Dec. 7, 1756, to Miss Fielding, about her Familiar Letters, says:--'What a knowledge of the human heart! Well might a critical judge of writing say, as he did to me, that your late brother's knowledge of it was not (fine writer as he was) comparable to yours. His was but as the knowledge of the outside of a clock-work machine, while yours was that of all the finer springs and movements of the inside.' Richardson Corres. ii. 104. Mrs. Calderwood, writing of her visit to the Low Countries in 1756, says:--'All Richison's [Richardson's] books are translated, and much admired abroad; but for Fielding's the foreigners have no notion of them, and do not understand them, as the manners are so entirely English.' Letters, &c., of Mrs. Calderwood, p. 208
[140] In The Provoked Husband, act iv. sc. 1.
[141] By Dr. Hoadley, brought out in 1747. 'This was the first good comedy from the time of The Provoked Husband in 1727.' Murphy's Garrick, p. 78.
[142] Madame Riccoboni, writing to Garrick from Paris on Sept. 7, 1768, says:--'On ne supporterait point ici l'indecence de Ranger. Les tresindecens Francaisdeviennent delicats sur leur theatre, a mesure qu'ils le sont moins dans leur conduite.' Garrick's Corres. ii. 548.
[143] 'The question in dispute was as to the heirship of Mr. Archibald Douglas. If he were really the son of Lady Jane Douglas, he would inherit large family estates; but if he were supposititious, then they would descend to the Duke of Hamilton. The Judges of the Court of Session had been divided in opinion, eight against seven, the Lord President Dundas giving the casting vote in favour of the Duke of Hamilton; and in consequence of it he and several other of the judges had, on the reversal by the Lords, their houses attacked by a mob. It is said, but not upon conclusive authority, that Boswell himself headed the mob which broke his own father's windows.' Letters of Boswell, p. 86. See post, April 27, 1773, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 24-26, 1773. Mr. J. H. Burton, in his Life of Hume (ii. 150), says:--'Men about to meet each other in company used to lay an injunction on themselves not to open their lips on the subject, so fruitful was it in debates and brawls.' Boswell, according to the Bodleian catalogue, was the author of Dorando, A Spanish Tale, 1767. In this tale the Douglas cause is narrated under the thinnest disguise. It is reviewed in the Gent. Mag. for 1767, p. 361.
[144] See post, under April 19, 1772, March 15, 1779, and June 2, 1781.
[145] Revd. Kenneth Macaulay. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 27, 1773. He was the great-uncle of Lord Macaulay.
[146] Martin, in his St. Kilda (p. 38), had stated that the people of St. Kilda 'are seldom troubled with a cough, except at the Steward's landing. I told them plainly,' he continues, 'that I thought all this notion of infection was but a mere fancy, at which they seemed offended, saying, that never any before the minister and myself was heard to doubt of the truth of it, which is plainly demonstrated upon the landing of every boat.' The usual 'infected cough,' came, he says, upon his visit. Macaulay (History of St. Kilda, p. 204) says that he had gone to the island a disbeliever, but that by eight days after his arrival all the inhabitants were infected with this disease. See also post, March, 21, 1772, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 2, 1773.
[147] See ante, July 1, 1763.
[148] Post, March 21, 1772.
[149] This is not the case. Martin (p. 9) says that the only landing place is inaccessible except under favour of a neap tide, a north-east or west wind, or with a perfect calm. He himself was rowed to St. Kilda, 'the inhabitants admiring to see us get thither contrary to the wind and tide' (p. 5).
[150] That for one kind of learning Oxford has no advantages, he shows in a letter that he wrote there on Aug. 4, 1777. 'I shall inquire,' he says, 'about the harvest when I come into a region where anything necessary to life is understood.' Piozzi Letters, i. 349. At Lichfield he reached that region. 'My barber, a man not unintelligent, speaks magnificently of the harvest;' Ib p. 351.
[151] See post, Sept. 14, 1777.
[152] See ante, i. 116.
[153] The advancement had been very rapid. 'When Dr. Robertson's career commenced,' writes Dugald Stewart in his Life of that historian (p. 157), 'the trade of authorship was unknown in Scotland.' Smollet, in Humphry Clinker, published three years after this conversation, makes Mr. Bramble write (Letter of Aug. 8):--'Edinburgh is a hot-bed of genius. I have had the good fortune to be made acquainted with many authors of the first distinction; such as the two Humes [David Hume and John Home, whose names had the same pronunciation], Robertson, Smith, Wallace, Blair, Ferguson, Wilkie, &c.' To these might be added Smollett himself, Boswell, Reid, Beattie, Kames, Monboddo. Henry Mackenzie and Dr. Henry began to publish in 1771. Gibbon, writing to Robertson in 1779, says:--'I have often considered with some sort of envy the valuable society which you possess in so narrow a compass.' Stewart's Robertson, p.