137, 431. At Johnson's visit Hume was living in his new house in the street which was humorously named after him, St. David Street. Ib. p. 436.
[46] The English servant-girl in Humphry Clinker (Letter of July 18), after describing how the filth is thus thrown out, says:--'The maid calls gardy loo to the passengers, which signifies Lord have mercy upon you!'
[47] Wesley, when at Edinburgh in May, 1761, writes:--'How can it be suffered that all manner of filth should still be thrown even into this street [High Street] continually? How long shall the capital city of Scotland, yea, and the chief street of it, stink worse than a common sewer?' Wesley's Journal, iii. 52. Baretti (Journey from London to Genoa, ii.255) says that this was the universal practice in Madrid in 1760. He was driven out of that town earlier than he had intended to leave it by the dreadful stench. A few years after his visit the King made a reform, so that it became 'one of the cleanest towns in Europe.' Ib. p 258. Smollett in Humphry Clinker makes Matthew Bramble say (Letter of July 18):--'The inhabitants of Edinburgh are apt to imagine the disgust that we avow is little better than affectation.'
[48] 'Most of their buildings are very mean; and the whole town bears some resemblance to the old part of Birmingham.' Piozzi Letters, i. 109.
[49] See ante, i. 313.
[50] Miss Burney, describing her first sight of Johnson, says:--'Upon asking my father why he had not prepared us for such uncouth, untoward strangeness, he laughed heartily, and said he had entirely forgotten that the same impression had been at first made upon himself; but had been lost even on the second interview.' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii.91.
[51] See post, Aug. 22.
[52] see ante, iii. 216.
[53] Boswell writes, in his Hypochondriacks:--'Naturally somewhat singular, independent of any additions which affectation and vanity may perhaps have made, I resolved to have a more pleasing species of marriage than common, and bargained with my bride that I should not be bound to live with her longer than I really inclined; and that whenever I tired of her domestic society I should be at liberty to give it up. Eleven years have elapsed, and I have never yet wished to take advantage of my stipulated privilege.' London Mag. 1781, p.136. See ante, ii. 140, note 1.
[54] Sir Walter Scott was two years old this day. He was born in a house at the head of the College Wynd. When Johnson and Boswell returned to Edinburgh Jeffrey was a baby there seventeen days old. Some seventeen or eighteen years later 'he had the honour of assisting to carry the biographer of Johnson, in a state of great intoxication, to bed. For this he was rewarded next morning by Mr. Boswell clapping his head, and telling him that he was a very promising lad, and that if "you go on as you've begun, you may live to be a Bozzy yourself yet."' Cockburn's Jeffrey, i. 33.
[55] He was one of Boswell's executors, and as such was in part responsible for the destruction of his manuscripts. Ante, iii. 301, note i. It is to his Life of Dr. Beattie that Scott alludes in the Introduction to the fourth Canto of Marmion:--
'Scarce had lamented Forbes paid The tribute to his Minstrel's shade; The tale of friendship scarce was told, Ere the narrator's heart was cold-- Far may we search before we find A heart so manly and so kind.'
It is only of late years that Forbes has generally ceased to be a dissyllable.
[56] The saint's name of Veronica was introduced into our family through my great grandmother Veronica, Countess of Kincardine, a Dutch lady of the noble house of Sommelsdyck, of which there is a full account in Bayle's Dictionary. The family had once a princely right in Surinam. The governour of that settlement was appointed by the States General, the town of Amsterdam, and Sommelsdyck. The States General have acquired Sommelsdyck's right; but the family has still great dignity and opulence, and by intermarriages is connected with many other noble families. When I was at the Hague, I was received with all the affection of kindred. The present Sommelsdyck has an important charge in the Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives. He has honoured me with his correspondence for these twenty years. My great grandfather, the husband of Countess Veronica, was Alexander, Earl of Kincardine, that eminent Royalist whose character is given by Burnet in his History of his own Times. From him the blood of Bruce flows in my veins. Of such ancestry who would not be proud? And, as Nihil est, nisi hoc sciat alter, is peculiarly true of genealogy, who would not be glad to seize a fair opportunity to let it be known. BOSWELL. Boswell visited Holland in 1763. Ante, i. 473. Burnet says that 'the Earl was both the wisest and the worthiest man that belonged to his country, and fit for governing any affairs but his own; which he by a wrong turn, and by his love for the public, neglected to his ruin. His thoughts went slow and his words came much slower; but a deep judgment appeared in everything he said or did.