Part 22

“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.