“General Paoli described a blue-stocking meeting very well:—Here, four or five old ladies talking formally, and a priest (Dr. Barnard, Provost of Eton), with a wig like the globe, sitting in the middle, as if he were confessing them.’”
May, 1781.
“Mrs. Thrale spoke slightingly of Paradise.[363] She said, ‘I never heard him say anything, but my fader vos not a Greek, but my moder was a Greek.’ Young Burke and I thought her too severe; ‘but,’ said young Burke, ‘it seems she does not find the tree of knowledge in Paradise.’”
6th May, 1781.
“Lady Preston[364] had catched cold by going to some meeting. Capt. Brisbane[365] wrote to Lady Maxwell,[366] ‘Some ladies have a zeal, I do not say without knowledge, but without constitution to support it.’”
“When Wilkes and I sat together, each glass of wine produced a flash of wit, like gunpowder thrown into the fire—Puff! puff!”
“Lord Mountstuart said at J. R. McKye’s, 30th April, 1783, that it was observed I was like Charles Fox. ‘I have been told so,’ said I. ‘You’re much uglier,’ said Col. James Stuart, with his sly drollery. I turned to him, full as sly and as droll: ‘Does your wife think so, Colonel James?’ Young Burke said, ‘Here was less meant than meets the ear.’”
“Mr. Charles Cochrane[367] was applied to requesting freestone to erect a monument at Falkirk to Sir Harry Monro,[368] who was killed at the battle there, fighting against Prince Charles in 1745. Mr. Cochrane very readily granted the request, and said he should be very glad to give stones for burying all the Whigs in Scotland.”
From Mr. Stobie, Mr. Cochrane’s agent.
“One who boasted of being an infidel said to Mr. Allan Logan that he wished much to see a spirit, but had in vain visited churchyards and every other place where he had the best chance. Mr. Logan, who was a very serious and even superstitious and credulous believer, answered, ‘Why, man, you was a great fool for making the experiment, and you would have the devil to be as great a fool as yourself. He is sure of you at present, and you would have him to appear to you, that you might be convinced of a future state and escape him? No, no; he is too wise for that.’”