Later on (ante, iii. 104) he asked Boswell 'to be vigilant and get him Graham's Telemachus.'
[302] I am sure I have related this story exactly as Dr. Johnson told it to me; but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At last, Sir, Graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking to another, said Doctor, &c.' 'What effect (Dr. Johnson used to add) this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be easily conceived.' BOSWELL.
[303] Graham was of Eton College.
[304] It was to Johnson that the invitation was due. 'What I was at the English Church at Aberdeen I happened to be espied by Lady Dr. Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, Lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to Lord Errol's house.' Piozzi Letters, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the compliment was paid.
[305] 'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.' Ante, April 28, 1783. Smollett (History of England, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 185) says:--'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns (sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the slow fever of which he died.' Mr. Seward records (Anec. ii. 395):--'Mr. Cummins, the celebrated American Quaker, said of Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham):--"The first time I come to Mr. Pitt upon any business I find him extremely ignorant; the second time I come to him, I find him completely informed upon it."'
[306] See ante, i. 232.
[307] See ante, i. 46.
[308] 'From the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat with violence, must enjoy all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not for any amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, I may say, without violation of humanity, that I should willingly look out upon them from Slanes Castle.' Johnson's Works, ix. 15.
[309] See ante, p. 68.
[310] Horace. Odes, i. 2.
[311] See ante, ii. 428.
[312] Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk. Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:--'Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house and a farm or two adjoining.' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 187.
[313] See ante, ii. 421, note 1.
[314] Since the accession of George I. only one parliament had had so few as five sessions, and it was dissolved before its time by his death. One had six sessions, six seven sessions, (including the one that was now sitting,) and one eight. There was therefore so little dread of a sudden dissolution that for five years of each parliament the members durst contradict the populace.
[315] To Miss Burney Johnson once said:--'Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 343. 'Once at Mr. Thrale's, when Reynolds left the room, Johnson observed:--"There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 82. Burke wrote of him:--'He had a strong turn for humour, and well saw the weak sides of things. He enjoyed every circumstance of his good fortune, and had no affectation on that subject. And I do not know a fault or weakness of his that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 638.
[316] He visited Devonshire in 1762. Ante, i. 377.
[317] Horace Walpole, describing the coronation of George III, writes:-- 'One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block.' Letters, iii.