“Boswell said that a man is reckoned a wise man rather for what he does not say than for what he says. Perhaps upon the whole Limbertongue speaks a greater quantity of good sense than Manly does. But Limbertongue gives you such floods of frivolous nonsense that his sense is quite drowned. Manly gives you unmixed good sense only. Manly will always be thought the wisest man of the two.”
“Dempster, who was a great republican, was presenting an address one day at court. He was hurt to see subordination prevail so much, and was shocked to see the keen and able Lord Marchmont[128] bowing just like the rest. He said he looked like a chained eagle at a gentleman’s gate.”
From himself.
“Mr. Samuel Johnson said that all sceptical innovators were vain men; and finding mankind allready (sic) in possession of Truth, they found they could not gratify their vanity in supporting her, and so they have taken to error. Truth (said he) is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.”
I was present.
“Captain Erskine[129] complained that Boswell’s hand was so large, that his letters contained very little. My lines (said Boswell) are, like my ideas, very irregular, and at a great distance from each other.”
“Sir W. Maxwell[130] said he was allways affraid (sic) of a clever man till he knew if he had good nature. ‘Yes,’ said Boswell; ‘when you see a clever man you see a man brandishing a drawn sword, and you are uneasy till you know if he intends only to make it glitter in the sun, or to run you through the body with it.’”
“A robust Caledonian was telling (in the Scots pronunciation) that he was born in Embro. ‘Indeed!’ said an English physician: ‘upon my word, the prettiest abortion I ever saw.’”
Mr. Crawfurd,[131] Rotterdam.