438. Sir William Forbes says:--'He often put me in mind of an ancient Hero, and I remember Dr. Johnson was positive that he resembled Homer's character of Sarpedon.' Life of Beattie, ed. 1824, Appendix D. Mrs. Piozzi says:--'The Earl dressed in his robes at the coronation and Mrs. Siddons in the character of Murphy's Euphrasia were the noblest specimens of the human race I ever saw.' Synonymy, i.43. He sprang from a race of rebels. 'He united in his person,' says Forbes, 'the four earldoms of Errol, Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Callander.' The last two were attainted in 1715, and Kilmarnock in 1745. Life of Beattie, Appendix D.
[318] Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son [iii. 130], complains of one who argued in an indiscriminate manner with men of all ranks, Probably the noble lord had felt with some uneasiness what it was to encounter stronger abilities than his own. If a peer will engage at foils with his inferior in station, he must expect that his inferior in station will avail himself of every advantage; otherwise it is not a fair trial of strength and skill. The same will hold in a contest of reason, or of wit.--A certain king entered the lists of genius with Voltaire. The consequence was, that, though the king had great and brilliant talents, Voltaire had such a superiority that his majesty could not bear it; and the poet was dismissed, or escaped, from that court.--In the reign of James I. of England, Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, a peer of Scotland, from a vain ambition to excel a fencing-master in his own art, played at rapier and dagger with him. The fencing-master, whose fame and bread were at stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes. Exasperated at this, Lord Sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the fencing-master assassinated; for which his lordship was capitally tried, condemned, and hanged. Not being a peer of England, he was tried by the name of Robert Crichton, Esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of three hundred years' standing.--See the State Trials; and the History of England by Hume, who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank. BOSWELL. The 'stronger abilities' that Chesterfield encountered were Johnson's. Boswell thought wrongly that it was of Johnson that his Lordship complained in his letters to his son. Ante, i. 267, note 2. 'A certain King' was Frederick the Great. Ante, i. 434. The fencing-master was murdered in his own house in London, five years after Sanquhar (or Sanquire) had lost his eye. Bacon, who was Solicitor-General, said:--'Certainly the circumstance of time is heavy unto you; it is now five years since this unfortunate man, Turner, be it upon accident or despight, gave the provocation which was the seed of your malice.' State Trials, ii. 743, and Hume's History, ed. 1802, vi. 61.
[319] Hamlet, act i. sc. 2.
[320] Perhaps Lord Errol was the Scotch Lord mentioned ante, iii. 170, and the nobleman mentioned ib. p. 329.
[321] 'Pitied by gentle minds Kilmarnock died.' Ante. i. 180.
[322] Sir Walter Scott describes the talk that he had in 1814 near Slains Castle with an old fisherman. 'The old man says Slains is now inhabited by a Mr. Bowles, who comes so far from the southward that naebody kens whare he comes frae. "Was he frae the Indies?" "Na; he did not think he came that road. He was far frae the Southland. Naebody ever heard the name of the place; but he had brought more guid out o' Peterhead than a' the Lords he had seen in Slains, and he had seen three."' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 188. The first of the three was Johnson's host.
[323] See ante, ii. 153, and iii. 1, note 2.
[324] Smollett, in Humphry Clinker (Letter of Sept. 6), writing of the Highlanders and their chiefs, says:--'The original attachment is founded on something prior to the feudal system, about which the writers of this age have made such a pother, as if it was a new discovery, like the Copernican system ... For my part I expect to see the use of trunk-hose and buttered ale ascribed to the influence of the feudal system.' See ante, ii. 177.
[325] Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Vous conviendrez que les nobles sont peu menages par vos auteurs; le sot, le fat, ou le malhonnete homme mele dans l'intrigue est presque toujours un lord.' Garrick Corres, ii. 561. Dr. Moore (View of Society in France, i. 29) writing in 1779 says:--'I am convinced there is no country in Europe where royal favour, high birth, and the military profession could be allowed such privileges as they have in France, and where there would be so few instances of their producing rough and brutal behaviour to inferiors.' Mrs. Piozzi, writing in 1784, though she did not publish her book till 1789, said:--'The French are really a contented race of mortals;--precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads gentle, humble life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain.' Journey through France, i. 13.
[326] He is the worthy son of a worthy father, the late Lord Strichen, one of our judges, to whose kind notice I was much obliged.