It is the good of public life that it supplies agreeable topics and general conversation. Therefore wherever you are, and whatever you see, talk not of the Punic War; nor of the depravity of human nature; nor of the slender motives of human actions; nor of the difficulty of finding employment or pleasure; but talk, and talk, and talk of the regatta.' Ib. p. 260. He was no doubt sick of the constant reference made by writers and public speakers to Rome. For instance, in Bolingbroke's Dissertation upon Parties, we find in three consecutive Letters (xi-xiii) five illustrations drawn from Rome.
[586] It is strange that Boswell does not mention that on this day they met the Duke and Duchess of Argyle in the street. That they did so we learn from Piozzi Letters, i. 386. Perhaps the Duchess shewed him 'the same marked coldness' as at Inverary. Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 25.
[587] At Auchinleck he had 'exhorted Boswell to plant assiduously.' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 4.
[588] See ante, i. 72. In Scotland it was Cocker's Arithmetic that he took with him. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 31. He was not always correct in his calculations. For instance, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Ashbourne less than a fortnight after Boswell's departure: 'Mr. Langdon bought at Nottingham fair fifteen tun of cheese; which, at an ounce a-piece, will suffice after dinner for four-hundred-and-eighty thousand men.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 2. To arrive at this number he must have taken a hundredweight as equal to, not 112, but 100, pounds.
[589] Johnson wrote the next day:--'Boswell is gone, and is, I hope, pleased that he has been here; though to look on anything with pleasure is not very common. He has been gay and good-humoured in his usual way, but we have not agreed upon any other expedition.' Piozzi Letters, i. 384.
[590] He lent him also the original journal of his Hebrides, and received in return a complimentary letter, which he in like manner published. Boswell's Hebrides, near the end.
[591] 'The landlord at Ellon said that he heard he was the greatest man in England, next to Lord Mansfield.' Ante, ii. 336.
[592] See ante, under March 15, 1776, where Johnson says that 'truth is essential to a story.'
[593] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell kept his journal very diligently; but then what was there to journalize? I should be glad to see what he says of *********.' Piozzi Letters, i. 390. The number of stars renders it likely that Beauclerk is meant. See ante, p. 195, note 1.
[594] See ante, ii. 279.
[595] Mr. Beauclerk. See ante, p. 195.
[596] Beauclerk.
[597] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell says his wife does not love me quite well yet, though we have made a formal peace.' Piozzi Letters, i. 390.
[598] A daughter born to him. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says that this daughter was Miss Jane Langton, mentioned post, May 10, 1784.
[599] She had already had eleven children, of whom seven were by this time dead. Ante, p. 109. This time a daughter was born, and not a young brewer. Post, July 3, 1778.
[600] Three months earlier Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'We are not far from the great year of a hundred thousand barrels, which, if three shillings be gained upon each barrel, will bring us fifteen thousand pounds a year.' Piozzi Letters, i. 357. We may see how here, as elsewhere, he makes himself almost one with the Thrales.
[601] See ante, p. 97.
[602] Mrs. Aston. BOSWELL.
[603] See State Trials, vol. xi. p. 339, and Mr. Hargrave's argument. BOSWELL. See ante, p. 87.
[604] The motto to it was happily chosen:--
'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.'
I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance no less strange than true, that a brother Advocate in considerable practice, but of whom it certainly cannot be said, Ingenuas didicit fideliter artes, asked Mr. Maclaurin, with a face of flippant assurance, 'Are these words your own?' BOSWELL. Sir Walter Scott shows where the humour of this motto chiefly lay. 'The counsel opposite,' he writes, 'was the celebrated Wight, an excellent lawyer, but of very homely appearance, with heavy features, a blind eye which projected from its socket, a swag belly, and a limp. To him Maclaurin applied the lines of Virgil:--
'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses, O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori.'
['Though he was black, and thou art heavenly fair, Trust not too much to that enchanting face.'
DRYDEN. Virgil, Eclogues, ii. 16.] Mr. Maclaurin wrote an essay against the Homeric tale of 'Troy divine,' I believe, for the sole purpose of introducing a happy motto,--
'Non anni domuere decem non mille carinae.'
[AEneid, ii. 198.] Croker's Boswell, p. 279.
[605] There is, no doubt, some malice in this second mention of Dundas's Scottish accent (see ante, ii. 160). Boswell complained to Temple in 1789 that Dundas had not behaved well to himself or his brother David. 'The fact is, he writes, 'on David's being obliged to quit Spain on account of the war, Dundas promised to my father that he would give him an office.