“When Mr. Love was engaged for Drury Lane, he went to Covent Garden and saw Shuter[352] play Falstaff the night before he appeared in that character himself. After the play was over, Mr. Shuter said, ‘He has satisfied me very much—because he satisfied nobody else.’”
From himself.
“The Duke de Nivernois[353] is a man of fine parts and address, but a very diminutive figure. When he made his appearance in London in the year 1762, Charles Townshend said, ‘It is impossible this can be an ambassador, for he has not even the preliminaries of a man.’”
Lord Kelly.
“Eating supper is nothing. ’Tis drinking supper hurts a man.”
29th May, 1783.
“Mr. Burke said at Chelsea College dinner, a poor French cook was persecuted by the mob at Edinburgh as a Papist. Said young Burke, ‘They had taken him for a frier!’”
“At Chelsea College dinner, 29th May, 1783, Sir George Howard,[354] the Governor, drank to the memory of Charles the Second, the founder; and then to the glorious and immortal memory of William the Third, its last royal benefactor. Mr. Burke, who used to joke with Mr. Boswell as a friend to the House of Stewart, observed that no notice had been taken of James the Second, whose name is still inscribed upon the college as a benefactor. Mr. Boswell then said, merely from the connection of the word medio with that prince as the middle king who had promoted that institution, ‘Sir George, you are unmindful of medio tutissimus ibis.’ Sir George answered, very justly, ‘That is a maxim I think he did not understand.’”
“My friends are to me like the cinnamon tree, which produces nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon; not only do I get wisdom and worth out of them, but amusement. I use them as the Chinese do their animals; nothing is lost; there a very good dish is made of the poorest parts. So I make the follies of my friends serve as a dessert after their valuable qualities.”
“It is very disagreeable to hear a man going about a subject and about it, and hesitating, while one perceives what he means to say. Mental stammering hurts one as much as a stammering in speech.”