[1431] Pr. and Med. p. 66. BOSWELL.
[1432] Single-speech Hamilton, as he was commonly called, though in the House of Commons he had spoken more than once. For above thirty sessions together, however, he held his tongue. Prior's Burke, p. 67.
[1433] See Appendix E for an explanation.
[1434] Pr. and Med. p. 67 BOSWELL.
[1435] See Appendix F.
[1436] Mr. Blakeway, in a note on this passage, says:—'The predecessor of old Thrale was Edmund Halsey, Esq.; the nobleman who married his daughter was Lord Cobham. The family of Thrale was of some consideration in St. Albans; in the Abbey-church is a handsome monument to the memory of Mr. John Thrale, late of London, merchant, who died in 1704.' He describes the arms on the monument. Mr. Hayward, in Mrs. Piozzis Autobiography, i. 9, quotes her marginal note on this page in Boswell. She says that Edmund Halsey, son of a miller at St. Albans, married the only daughter of his master, old Child, of the Anchor Brewhouse, Southwark, and succeeded to the business upon Child's death. 'He sent for one of his sister's sons to London (my Mr. Thrale's father); said he would make a man of him, and did so; but made him work very hard, and treated him very roughly.' He left him nothing at his death, and Thrale bought the brewery of Lord and Lady Cobham.
[1437] See post, under April 4, 1781, and June 16, 1781.
[1438] Mrs. Burney informs me that she heard Dr. Johnson say, 'An English Merchant is a new species of Gentleman.' He, perhaps, had in his mind the following ingenious passage in The Conscious Lovers, act iv. scene ii, where Mr. Sealand thus addresses Sir John Bevil: 'Give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful as you landed-folks, that have always thought yourselves so much above us; for your trading forsooth is extended no farther than a load of hay, or a fat ox.—You are pleasant people indeed! because you are generally bred up to be lazy, therefore, I warrant your industry is dishonourable.' BOSWELL.
The Conscious Lovers is by Steele. 'I never heard of any plays fit for a Christian to read,' said Parson Adams, 'but Cato and The Conscious Lovers; and I must own, in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.' Joseph Andrews, Book III, chap. xi.
[1439] In the first number of The Hypochondriack Boswell writes:—'It is a saying in feudal treatises, "Semel Baro semper Baro_," "Once a baron always a baron."' London Mag. 1777, p. 493. He seems of Mr. Thrale's inferiority by speaking of him as Thrale and his house as Thrale's. See post, April 5 and 12, 1776, April 7, 1778, and under March 30, 1783. He never, I believe, is thus familiar in the case of Beauclerk, Burke, Langton, and Reynolds.