1, 1774, note, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15.
[142] Mr. E.J. Payne, criticising this passage, says:--'It is certain that Burke never thought he was deserting any principle of his own in joining the Rockinghams.' Payne's Burke, i. xvii.
[143] No doubt Mrs. Macaulay. See ante, i. 447. 'Being asked whether he had read Mrs. Macaulay's second volume of the History of England, "No, Sir," says he, "nor her first neither."' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 205.
[144] 'Of this distinguished Epilogue the reputed author was the wretched Budgel, whom Addison used to denominate "the man who calls me cousin" [Spence's Anecdotes, ed. 1820, p. 161]; and when he was asked how such a silly fellow could write so well, replied, "The Epilogue was quite another thing when I saw it first." [Ib. p. 257.] It was known in Tonson's family, and told to Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and that, when it had been at first printed with his name, he came early in the morning, before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to Budgel, that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then making for a place.' Johnson's Works, viii. 389. See ante, i. 181.
[145] See post, Jan. 20, 1782.
[146] On May 10, 1768, on which day the new parliament met, a great body of people gathered round the King's Bench prison in St. George's Fields in expectation that Wilkes would go thence to the House of Commons. Some kind of a riot arose, a proclamation was made in the terms of the Riot-Act, and the soldiers firing by order of Justice Gillam, killed five or six on the spot. The justice and one of the soldiers were on the coroner's inquest brought in guilty of wilful murder, and two other soldiers of aiding and abetting therein. With great difficulty the prisoners were saved from the rage of the populace. They were all acquitted however. At Gillam's trial the judge ruled in his favour, so that the case did not go to the jury. Of the trial of one of the soldiers 'no account was allowed to be published by authority.' Ann. Reg. 1768, pp. 108-9, 112, 136-8, 233. Professor Dicey (Law of the Constitution, p. 308) points out that 'the position of a soldier may be both in theory and practice, a difficult one. He may, as it has been well said, be liable to be shot by a court-martial if he disobeys an order, and to be hanged by a judge and jury if he obeys it.' The remembrance of these cases was perhaps the cause of the feebleness shewn in the Gordon Riots in June 1780. Dr. Franklin wrote from London on May 14, 1768 (Memoirs, iii. 315):--'Even this capital is now a daily scene of lawless riot. Mobs patrolling the streets at noon-day, some knocking all down that will not roar for Wilkes and liberty; courts of justice afraid to give judgment against him; coal-heavers and porters pulling down the houses of coal-merchants that refuse to give them more wages; sawyers destroying saw-mills; sailors unrigging all the outward-bound ships, and suffering none to sail till merchants agree to raise their pay; watermen destroying private boats, and threatening bridges; soldiers firing among the mobs and killing men, women, and children.' 'While I am writing,' he adds (ib. p. 316), 'a great mob of coal-porters fill the street, carrying a wretch of their business upon poles to be ducked for working at the old wages.' See also ib. p. 402. Hume agreed with Johnson about the 'imbecility' of the government; but he drew from it different conclusions. He wrote on Oct. 27, 1775, about the addresses to the King:--'I wish they would advise him first to punish those insolent rascals in London and Middlesex, who daily insult him and the whole legislature, before he thinks of America. Ask him, how he can expect that a form of government will maintain an authority at 3000 miles' distance, when it cannot make itself be respected, or even be treated with common decency, at home.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 479. On the 30th of this month of April--four days after the conversation in the text--John Home recorded:--'Mr. Hume cannot give any reason for the incapacity and want of genius, civil and military, which marks this period.' Ib. p. 503.
[147] See Dr. Johnson, His Friends, &c., p. 252.
[148] It was published in 1743.
[149] I am sorry that there are no memoirs of the Reverend Robert Blair, the author of this poem. He was the representative of the ancient family of Blair, of Blair, in Ayrshire, but the estate had descended to a female, and afterwards passed to the son of her husband by another marriage. He was minister of the parish of Athelstanford, where Mr. John Home was his successor; so that it may truely be called classick ground. His son, who is of the same name, and a man eminent for talents and learning, is now, with universal approbation, Solicitor-General of Scotland. BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 94) describes Blair 'as so austere and void of urbanity as to make him quite disagreeable to young people.'
[150] In 1775 Mrs. Montagu gave Mrs. Williams a small annuity. Croker's Boswell, pp.