Chapter 252

Strawberry Hill, May 12, 1783. (page 324)

My lord, I did not know, till I received the honour of your lordship's letter, that any obstruction had been given to your charter. I congratulate your lordship and the Society on the defeat of that opposition, which does not seem to have been a liberal one. The pursuit of national antiquities has rarely been an object, I believe, with any university: why should they obstruct others from marching in that track? I have often thought the English Society of Antiquaries have gone out of their way when they meddled with Roman remains, especially if not discovered within our island. Were I to speak out, I should own, that I hold most reliques of the Romans that have been found in Britain, of little consequence, unless relating to such emperors as visited us. Provincial armies stationed in so remote and barbarous a quarter as we were then, acted little, produced little worth being remembered. Tombstones erected to legionary officers and their families, now dignified by the title of inscriptions; and banks and ditches that surrounded camps, which we understand much better by books and plans, than by such faint fragments, are given with much pomp, and tell us nothing new. Your lordship's new foundation seems to proceed on a much more rational and useful plan. The biography of the illustrious of your country will be an honour to Scotland, to those illustrious, and to the authors: and may contribute considerably to the general history; for the investigation of particular lives may bring out many anecdotes that may unfold secrets of state, or explain passages in such histories as have been already written; especially as the manners of the times may enter into private biography, though before Voltaire manners were rarely weighed in general history, though very often the sources of considerable events. I shall be very happy to see such lives as shall be published, while I remain alive. I cannot contribute any thing of consequence to your lordship's meditated account of John Law. I have heard many anecdotes of him, though none that I can warrant, particularly that of the duel for which he fled early.(493) I met the other day with an account in some French literary gazette, I forget which, of his having carried off the wife of another man. Lady Catherine Law, his wife, lived, during his power in France, in the most stately manner. Your lordship knows, to be sure, that he died and is buried at Venice. I have two or three different prints of him, and an excellent head of him in crayons by Rosalba, the best of her portraits. It is certainly very like, for, were the flowing wig converted into a female head-dress, it would be the exact resemblance of Lady Wallingford, his daughter, whom I See frequently at the Duchess of Montrose's, and who has by no means a look of the age to which she is arrived. Law was a very extraordinary man, but not at all an estimable one.

I don't remember whether I ever told your lordship that there are many charters of your ancient kings preserved in the Scots College at Paris, and probably many other curiosities. I think I did mention many paintings of the old house of Lenox in the ancient castle at Aubigny.

(492) Now first collected.

(493) Evelyn, in his Diary, gives the following account of this duel:--"April 22 1694. A very young man, named Wilson, the younger son of one who had not above two hundred pounds a-year estate, lived in the garb and equipage of the richest nobleman, for house, furniture, coaches, saddle-horses, and kept a table and all things accordingly, redeemed his father's estate, and gave portions to his sisters, being challenged by one Laws, a Scotchman, was killed in a duel, not fairly. The quarrel arose from his taking away his own sister from a lodging in a house where this Laws had a mistress , which the mistress of the house thinking a disparagement to it, and losing by it, instigated Laws to this duel. He was taken, and condemned for murder. The mystery is, how this so young a gentleman, very sober and of good fame, could live in such an expensive manner; it could not be discovered by all possible industry, or entreaty of his friends to make him reveal it. It did not appear that he was kept by women, play, coining, padding, or dealing in chemistry; but he would sometimes say, that, if he should live ever so long, he had wherewith to maintain himself in the same manner, This was a subject Of much discourse." Law was found guilty of murder, and sentence of death was passed upon him. He however, found means to escape, and got clear off to the Continent. A reward of fifty bounds for is apprehension appeared in the London Gazette of the 7th of January, 1695.-E.