BOSWELL.
[1050] See ante, p. 338.
[1051]
'Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae.' 'But God and man, and letter'd post denies That poets ever are of middling size.'
FRANCIS, Horace, Ars Poet. l. 372.
[1052] Why he failed to keep his journal may be guessed from his letter to Temple:--'I am,' he wrote on April 17, 'indeed enjoying this metropolis to the full, according to my taste, except that I cannot, I see, have a plenary indulgence from you for Asiatic multiplicity. Be not afraid of me, except when I take too much claret; and then indeed there is a furor brevis as dangerous as anger.... I have rather had too much dissipation since I came last to town. I try to keep a journal, and shall show you that I have done tolerably: but it is hardly credible what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am pars magna, for my exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 187-9.
[1053] Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 110, published on Easter Eve, 1751, thus justifies fasting:--'Austerity is the proper antidote to indulgence; the diseases of mind as well as body are cured by contraries, and to contraries we should readily have recourse if we dreaded guilt as we dread pain.'
[1054] From this too just observation there are some eminent exceptions, BOSWELL. 'Dr. Johnson said:--"Few bishops are now made for their learning. To be a bishop, a man must be learned in a learned age, factious in a factious age, but always of eminence."' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21, 1773.
[1055] Lord Shelburne wrote of him:--'He panted for the Treasury, having a notion that the King and he understood it from what they had read about revenue and funds while they were at Kew.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 141.
[1056] Chief Justice Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden) became popular by his conduct as a judge in Wilkes's case. In 1764 he received the freedom of the guild of merchants in Dublin in a gold box, and from Exeter the freedom of the city. The city of London gave him its freedom in a gold box, and had his portrait painted by Reynolds. Gent. Mag. 1764, pp. 44, 96, 144. See ante, p. 314.
[1057] The King, on March 3, 1761, recommended this measure to Parliament. Parl. Hist. xv. 1007. 'This,' writes Horace Walpole, 'was one of Lord Bute's strokes of pedantry. The tenure of the judges had formerly been a popular topic; and had been secured, as far as was necessary. He thought this trifling addition would be popular now, when nobody thought or cared about it.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 41.
[1058] The money arising from the property of the prizes taken before the declaration of war, which were given to his Majesty by the peace of Paris, and amounted to upwards of L700,000, and from the lands in the ceded islands, which were estimated at L200,000 more. Surely there was a noble munificence in this gift from a Monarch to his people. And let it be remembered, that during the Earl of Bute's administration, the King was graciously pleased to give up the hereditary revenues of the Crown, and to accept, instead of them, of the limited sum of L800,000 a year; upon which Blackstone observes, that 'The hereditary revenues, being put under the same management as the other branches of the publick patrimony, will produce more, and be better collected than heretofore; and the publick is a gainer of upwards of L100,000 per annum by this disinterested bounty of his Majesty.' Book I. Chap. viii. p. 330. BOSWELL. Lord Bolingbroke (Works, iii. 286), about the year 1734, pointed out that 'if the funds appropriated produce the double of that immense revenue of L800,000 a year, which hath been so liberally given the King for life, the whole is his without account; but if they fail in any degree to produce it, the entire national fund is engaged to make up the difference.' Blackstone (edit, of 1778, i. 331) says:--'L800,000 being found insufficient, was increased in 1777 to, L900,000.' He adds, 'the public is still a gainer of near L100,000.'
[1059] See post, iii. 163.
[1060] Lord Eldon says that Dundas, 'in broken phrases,' asked the King to confer a baronetcy on 'an eminent Scotch apothecary who had got from Scotland the degree of M. D. The King said:--"What, what, is that all? It shall be done. I was afraid you meant to ask me to make the Scotch apothecary a physician--that's more difficult."' He added:--'They may make as many Scotch apothecaries Baronets as they please, but I shall die by the College.' Twiss's Eldon, ii. 354. A Dr. Duncan, says Mr. Croker, was appointed physician to the King in 1760. Croker's Boswell, p. 448. A doctor of the same name, and no doubt the same man, was made a baronet in Aug. 1764. Jesse's Selwyn, i. 287.
[1061] Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Chancellor Loughborough, and Earl of Rosslyn. One of his 'errands' had been to bring Johnson bills in payment of his first quarter's pension. Ante, i. 376.
[1062] Home, the author of Douglas.