From Dr. Barnard, London, 1781.
“Parnell[289] was miserably addicted to drinking. He could not refrain even the morning that Swift introduced him to Lord Oxford.[290] My lord pressed through the crowd to get to Parnell. But he soon perceived his situation. He in a little said to Swift, ‘your friend, I fear, is not very well.’ Swift answered, ‘He is troubled with a great shaking.’ ‘I am sorry,’ said the Earl, ‘that he should have such a distemper, but especially that it should attack him in the morning.’”
From Dr. Barnard, Bishop of Killaloe,
who had it from Dr. Delany.
“In spring, 1781, Dr. Franklin[291] wrote from Paris to a freind in London, with indignation against one who had been entrusted with money belonging to the American prisoners, and had run off with it. One expression in his letters was singularly strong, and indeed wild:—‘If that fellow is not damned, it is not worth while to keep a devil.’”
Mr. Suard.[292]
“Lord Foley,[293] whose extravagance frequently brought his creditors upon him so as to have executions in his house, was rallying George Selwyn on his particular curiosity for spectacles of death. ‘You go,’ said he, ‘I understand, to see all executions.’ ‘No my lord,’ answered George, ‘I don’t go to see your executions.’”
Mr. Suard.
“The Honourable Mrs. Stuart[294] was one day talking to me with just severity against drunkenness (the sin which doth most easily beset me). I attempted to apologise, and said that intoxication might happen at a time to any man. ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘to any man but a Scotsman, for what with another man is an accident is in him a habit.’”