Lord Kames.
“A gentleman was one day making that common serious reflection, ‘Time runs.’ ‘Very well,’ replied Boswell, ‘let it run there, for I am sure I shall never try to pursue it.’”
“Lady Katie Murray[320] having shown her full-length portrait to Lord Eglintoune, ‘O such vanity, such vanity!’ cried he, ‘do you really take that for you?’ ‘Indeed, my lord,’ says she, Mr. Reynolds says that it is me; so I can’t help it.’”
From herself.
“Colonel Folly came to wait upon old Jerviswood,[321] who was very deaf; and being very finically dressed, the old gentleman asked with great curiosity, ‘Who’s that? who’s that?’ and being answered, Colonel Folly, ‘I see,’ says he, ‘he’s a fool, but what is his name?’”
Lord Auchinleck.
“Sir Alexander Dick passed an evening at Rome with a number of gentlemen, who had been obliged to fly Scotland on account of the rebellion, 1715. One of them sung ‘The Broom of the Cowdenknowes,’[322] with which the whole company were so much affected as to burst into tears and cry with great bitterness.”
From himself.
“When John McKie[323] was in Prussia, one of the sentinels petitioned him and some other gentlemen who were with him for their charity to a poor Briton, who had been seized by the advanced guards while in the Dutch service, and had now but very poor pay. ‘Pray, sir,’ said Mr. McKie, ‘what is your name?’ ‘John McKie, sir,’ said he, ‘from the Laird of Balgowan’s estate, in the parish of Monigaff, in Galloway.’ Surprised and pleased at the discovery, they collected all the silver they had about them and threw to him.”