'Boswell's book [_The Tour to the Hebrides_], I suppose, will be out
in the winter. The King at his levée talked to him, as was natural, on
this subject. Boswell told his majesty that he had another work on the
anvil--a _History of the Rebellion in_ 1745 (_ante_, iii. 162); but
that he was at a loss how to style the principal person who figured
in it. "How would you style him, Mr. Boswell?" "I was thinking, Sire,
of calling him the grandson of the unfortunate James the Second." "That
I have no objection to; my title to the Crown stands on firmer ground
--on an Act of Parliament." This is said to be the _substance_ of a
conversation which passed at the levée. I wish I was certain of the
exact words.'
--Nichols's _Literary History_, vii. 472.
_Shakespeare's popularity_.
(Vol. v, p. 244, n. 2.)
Gibbon, after describing how he used to attend Voltaire's private theatre
at Monrepos in 1757 and 1758, continues:--
'The habits of pleasure fortified my taste for the French theatre, and
that taste has perhaps abated my idolatry for the gigantic genius of
Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of
an Englishman.'
--_Memoirs of Edward Gibbon_, ed. 1837, i. 90.
_Archibald Campbell_.
(Vol. v, p. 357.)
Mr. C. E. Doble informs me that in the Bodleian Library 'there is a
characteristic letter of Archibald Campbell in a _Life of Francis
Lee_ in Rawlinson, J., 4to. 2. 197; and also a skeleton life of him
in Rawlinson, J., 4to. 5. 301.'
_Cocoa Tree Club._
(Vol. v, p. 386, n. 1.)
Gibbon records in his Journal on November 24, 1762, a visit to the Cocoa
Tree Club:--
'That respectable body, of which I have the honour of being a member,
affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps,
of the first men in the kingdom in point of fashion and fortune, supping
at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee-room,
upon a bit of cold meat or a sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch.
At present we are full of king's counsellors and lords of the bed-chamber,
who, having jumped into the ministry, make a very singular medley
of their old principles and language with their modern ones.'
--_Memoirs of Edward Gibbon_, ed. 1827, i. 131.
_Johnson's use of the word 'big'_.
(Vol. v, p. 425.)
On volume i, page 471, Johnson says: 'Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to
use big words for little matters.'
_Atlas, the Duke of Devonshire's race-horse._
(Vol. v, p. 429.)
Johnson, in his _Diary of a Journey into North Wales_, records on
July 12, 1774:--
'At Chatsworth..., Atlas, fifteen hands inch and half.'
Mr. Duppa in a note on this, says: 'A race-horse, which attracted so
much of Dr. Johnson's attention, that he said, "of all the Duke's
possessions I like Atlas best."'
Thomas Holcroft, who in childhood wandered far and wide with his father,
a pedlar, was at Nottingham during the race-week of the year 1756 or
1757, and saw in its youth the horse which Johnson so much admired in
its old age. He says: 'The great and glorious part which Nottingham held
in the annals of racing this year, arose from the prize of the King's
plate, which was to be contended for by the two horses which everybody
I heard speak considered as undoubtedly the best in England, and perhaps
equal to any that had ever been known, Childers alone excepted. Their
names were Careless and Atlas.....There was a story in circulation that
Atlas, on account of his size and clumsiness, had been banished to the
cart-breed; till by some accident, either of playfulness or fright,
several of them started together; and his vast advantage in speed
happening to be noticed, he was restored to his blood companions.....Alas
for the men of Nottingham, Careless was conquered. I forget whether it
was at two or three heats, but there was many an empty purse on that
night, and many a sorrowful heart.'
--_Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft_, i. 70.
Sir Richard Clough.
(Vol. v, p. 436.)
There is an interesting note on Sir Richard Clough, the founder of Bâch
y Graig, in Professor Rhys's edition of Pennant's _Tours in Wales_
(vol. ii, p. 137). The Professor writes to me:--
'Sir Richard Clough's wealth was so great that it became a saying of the
people in North Wales that a man who grew very wealthy was or had become
a Clough. This has long been forgotten; but it is still said in Welsh,
in North Wales, that a very rich man is a regular _clwch_, which is
pronounced with the guttural spirant, which was then (in the 16th
century) sounded in English, just as the English word _draught_ (of
drink) is in Welsh _dracht_ pronounced nearly as if it were German.'
_Evan Evans._
(Vol. v, p. 443.)
Evan Evans, who is described as being 'incorrigibly addicted to strong
drink,' was Curate of Llanvair Talyhaern, in Denbighshire, and author
of _Some Specimens of the Poetry of Antient Welsh Bards translated into
English_. London, R. & J. Dodsley, 1764. My friend Mr. Morfill informs
me that he remembers to have seen it stated in a manuscript note in a
book in the Bodleian, that 'Evan Evans would have written much more if
he had not been so much given up to the bottle.'
Gray thus mentions Evan Evans in a letter to Dr. Wharton, written in
July, 1760:--
'The Welsh Poets are also coming to light. I have seen a discourse in
MS. about them (by one Mr. Evans, a clergyman) with specimens of their
writings. This is in Latin; and though it don't approach the other
[Macpherson], there are fine scraps among it.'
--_The Works of Thomas Gray_, ed. by the Rev. John Mitford. London,
1858, vol. iii, p. 250.