Dr. Johnson entertained a prejudice against him, but was induced by Boswell to wait on him for his recollections of Pope. Johnson was received by the earl with much cordiality, and at the close of a long interview he remarked to Boswell that he “would rather have given twenty pounds than not have come.” Lord Marchmont died on the 10th January, 1794, aged eighty-six.
[129] Captain Andrew Erskine (see supra, pp. 19-24).
[130] Sir William Maxwell, fourth Baronet of Monreith, Wigtonshire. He died 22nd August, 1771.
[131] Mr. Crawfurd succeeded the Rev. John Home in 1770, as Conservator of Scots Privileges at Campvere.
[132] C. H. Trotz, the great German jurisconsult, whose lectures on civil law Boswell attended at Utrecht in 1763. Professor Trotz was born in 1701, and died in 1773.
[133] James, Lord Hope, subsequently third Earl of Hopetoun, was born in 1741; he entered the army in 1758, and was present at the battle of Minden the following year; he left the army in 1764 to accompany his elder brother on a Continental tour; he succeeded to the earldom in 1781, and was afterwards elected a representative peer. He died on the 29th May, 1816, aged seventy-five.
[134] Samuel Foote, the celebrated comedian, was born in 1720, at Truro, in Cornwall; he belonged to a respectable family, but he soon wasted his inheritance and his wife’s fortune by a course of dissipation. Compelled by necessity, he became a player, making his début in the Haymarket Theatre in 1747. From a grotesque imitation of leading persons he attained popularity, accompanied with a rancorous feeling on the part of those whom he subjected to ridicule. He was an entertaining companion, but possessed few amiable qualities. He died in October, 1777, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
[135] George Lyttleton was born in 1709. As a commoner he entered Parliament in his twenty-first year. He opposed Walpole, and in 1732 was appointed secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales. On Walpole’s retirement he obtained a succession of offices, culminating in the Chancellorship of the Exchequer; in 1759 he was raised to the peerage. Henceforth he cultivated letters, producing various works in prose and verse. He was inclined to indolence, but was much esteemed for his high principle and moral worth. He died 22nd August, 1773.
[136] Boswell has inserted this anecdote in his Life of Dr. Johnson. Sir James Macdonald, Bart., the “Scottish Marcellus,” was eighth baronet of Sleat, and male representative of the Lords of the Isles. Born in 1741, he early distinguished himself at Eton by the variety of his accomplishments, and high hopes were entertained of his career. He was unhappily seized with a complication of disorders, of which he died on the 26th July, 1766, at the age of twenty-five.
[137] This anecdote is included by Boswell in his “Life of Johnson.”