If Dr Macauley can conveniently attend, should be glad you'd acquaint Lord Dartmouth with it, who seemed to be at loss to recommend a gentleman of the faculty at his end of the town.
St. John's Square. Monday noon.
To the Revd. Dr. Douglas.'
Endorsed 'Mr. Aldrich, Feb. 1762, about the Cock Lane ghost.—Examination at his house.'
[1197] Boswell was with Paoli when news came that a Corsican under sentence of death 'had consented to accept of his life, upon condition of becoming hangman. This made a great noise among the Corsicans, who were enraged at the creature, and said their nation was now disgraced. Paoli did not think so. He said to me:—"I am glad of this. It will be of service. It will contribute to form us to a just subordination. As we must have Corsican tailours, and Corsican shoemakers, we must also have a Corsican hangman."' Boswell's Corsica, p. 201. See post, July 20 and 21, 1763, April 13, 1773, and March 28, 1775.
[1198] 'Mallet's Dramas had their day, a short day, and are forgotten.' Johnson's Works, viii. 468.
[1199] See ante, p. 384, note.
[1200] 'A man had heard that Dempster was very clever, and therefore expected that he could say nothing but good things. Being brought acquainted, Mr. Dempster said to him with much politeness, "I hope, Sir, your lady and family are well." "Ay, ay, man," said he, "pray where is the great wit in that speech?"' Boswelliana, p. 307. Mr. Dempster is mentioned by Burns in The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch Representatives in the House of Commons:—'Dempster, a true-blue Scot I'se warran.' In 1769 he was elected member for the Forfar Boroughs. Parl. Hist. xvi. 453.
[1201] The Critical Review, in which Mallet himself sometimes wrote, characterised this pamphlet as 'the crude efforts of envy, petulance and self conceit.' There being thus three epithets, we, the three authours, had a humourous contention how each should be appropriated. BOSWELL.
[1202] Johnson (Works, ix. 86) talks of the chiefs 'gradually degenerating from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords.' In Boswell's Hebrides, the subject is often examined.