[1112] Page 291. BOSWELL.
[1113] In justice to Dr. Memis, though I was against him as an Advocate, I must mention, that he objected to the variation very earnestly, before the translation was printed off. BOSWELL.
[1114] Mr. Croker quotes The World of June 7, 1753, where a Londoner, 'to gratify the curiosity of a country friend, accompanied him in Easter week to Bedlam. To my great surprise,' he writes, 'I found a hundred people, at least, who, having paid their twopence apiece, were suffered unattended to run rioting up and down the wards making sport of the miserable inhabitants. I saw them in a loud laugh of triumph at the ravings they had occasioned.' Young (Universal Passion, Sat. v.) describes Britannia's daughters
'As unreserved and beauteous as the sun,
Through every sign of vanity they run;
Assemblies, parks, coarse feasts in city halls,
Lectures and trials, plays, committees, balls;
Wells, Bedlams, executions, Smithfield scenes,
And fortune-tellers' caves, and lions' dens.'
In 1749, William Hutton walked from Nottingham to London, passed three days there in looking about, and returned on foot. The whole journey cost him ten shillings and eight-pence. He says:—'I wished to see a number of curiosities, but my shallow pocket forbade. One penny to see Bedlam was all I could spare.' Hutton's Life, pp. 71, 74. Richardson (Familiar Letters, No. 153) makes a young lady describe her visit to Bedlam:—'The distempered fancies of the miserable patients most unaccountably provoked mirth and loud laughter; nay, so shamefully inhuman were some, among whom (I am sorry to say it) were several of my own sex, as to endeavour to provoke the patients into rage to make them sport.'
[1115] In the Life of Dryden (Works, vii. 304), Johnson writes:—'Virgil would have been too hasty if he had condemned him [Statius] to straw for one sounding line.' In Humphry Clinker (Letter of June 10), Mr. Bramble says to Clinker:—'The sooner you lose your senses entirely the better for yourself and the community. In that case, some charitable person might provide you with a dark room and clean straw in Bedlam.' Churchill, in Independence (Poems, ii. 307), writes:—
'To Bethlem with him—give him whips and straw,
I'm very sensible he's mad in law.'
[1116] My very honourable friend General Sir George Howard, who served in the Duke of Cumberland's army, has assured me that the cruelties were not imputable to his Royal Highness. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole shews the Duke's cruelty to his own soldiers. 'In the late rebellion some recruits had been raised under a positive engagement of dismission at the end of three years. When the term was expired they thought themselves at liberty, and some of them quitted the corps. The Duke ordered them to be tried as deserters, and not having received a legal discharge, they were condemned. Nothing could mollify him; two were executed.' Memoirs of the Reign of George II, ii. 203.
[1117] It has been suggested that this is Dr. Percy (see post, April 23, 1778), but Percy was more than 'an acquaintance of ours,' he was a friend.
[1118] Very likely Mr. Steevens. See post, April 13, 1778, and May 15, 1784.