(901) Now first collected. This eminent lawyer, antiquary, and historian was born in 1726. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards studied civil law at Utrecht. In 1748, he was called to the Scotch bar, and in 1766 made a judge of session, when he assumed the name of Lord Hailes. Boswell states, that Dr. Johnson, in 1763, drank a bumper to him "as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit." His "Annals of Scotland" the Doctor describes as "a work which has such a stability of dates, such a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation, that it must always sell." He wrote several papers in the World and Mirror. He died in 1792.-E.
(902) The Royal and Noble Authors.-E.
(903) Queen Elizabeth, who had turned Horace's Art of Poetry into English, having been offended with Sir Francis Bacon, the Earl of Essex, to recommend him again to favour, artfully told her, that his suit was not so much for the good of Bacon, as for her own honour, that those excellent translations of hers might be known to those who could best judge of them.-E.
(904) In Pope's Prologue to the Satires—
"Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,
Sat full-blown Bufo puff'd by many a quill."-E.
(905) Bubb Dodington—
"And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The first lampoon Sir Will, or Bubo makes."-E.
(906) Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. His Parthenissa, a romance in six books, appeared in folio in 1677.
431 Letter 269 To John Chute, Esq. Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1758.
The Tower-guns have sworn through thick and thin that Prince Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and the city-bonfires all believe it. However, as no officer is yet come, nor confirmation, my crackers suspend their belief. Our great fleet is stepped ashore again near Cherbourg; I suppose, to singe half a yard more of the coast. This is all I know; less, as you may perceive, than any thing but the Gazette.