[1246] The entail framed by my father with various judicious clauses, was settled by him and me, settling the estate upon the heirs male of his grandfather, which I found had been already done by my grandfather, imperfectly, but so as to be defeated only by selling the lands. I was freed by Dr. Johnson from scruples of conscientious obligation, and could, therefore, gratify my father. But my opinion and partiality of male succession, in its full extent, remained unshaken. Yet let me not be thought harsh or unkind to daughters; for my notion is, that they should be treated with great affection and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity of the family. BOSWELL.
[1247] Temple, in Popular Discontents (Works, iii. 62-64), examines the general dissatisfaction with the judicature of the House of Lords. Till the end of Elizabeth's reign, he states, the peers, who were few in number, were generally possessed of great estates which rendered them less subject to corruption. As one remedy for the evil existing in his time, he suggests that the Crown shall create no Baron, who shall not at the same time entail £4000 a year upon that honour, whilst it continues in his family; a Viscount, £5000; an Earl, £6000; a Marquis, £7000; and a Duke, £8000.
[1248] 'A cruel tyranny bathed in the blood of their Emperors upon every succession; a heap of vassals and slaves; no nobles, no gentlemen, no freeman, no inheritance of land, no strip of ancient families, [nullæ stirpes antiquæ].' Spedding Bacon, vii. 22.
[1249] 'Let me warn you very earnestly against scruples,' he wrote on March 5, of this year:—'I am no friend to scruples,' he had said at St. Andrew's. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19. 'On his many, men miserable, but few men good.' Croker's Boswell, p. 844.
[1250] A letter to him on the interesting subject of the family settlement, which I had read. BOSWELL.
[1251] Paoli had given Boswell much the same advice. 'All this,' said Paoli, 'is melancholy. I have also studied metaphysics. I know the arguments for fate and free-will, for the materiality and immateriality of the soul, and even the subtle arguments for and against the existence of matter. Ma lasciamo queste dispute ai oziosi. But let us leave these disputes to the idle. Io tengo sempre fermo un gran pensiero. I hold always firm one great object. I never feel a moment of despondency.' Boswell's Corsica, ed. 1879, p. 193. See post, March 14, 1781.
[1252] Johnson, in his letters to the Thrales during the year 1775, mentions this riding-school eight or nine times. The person recommended was named Carter. Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 72) says 'the profit of the History has been applied to the establishment of a riding-school, that the polite exercises might be taught, I know not with what success, in the University.'
[1253] I suppose the complaint was, that the trustees of the Oxford Press did not allow the London booksellers a sufficient profit upon vending their publications. BOSWELL.
[1254] Cadell published The False Alarm and The Journey to the Hebrides. Gibbon described him as 'That honest and liberal bookseller.' Stewart's Life of Robertson, p. 366.
[1255] I am happy in giving this full and clear statement to the publick, to vindicate, by the authority of the greatest authour of his age, that respectable body of men, the Booksellers of London, from vulgar reflections, as if their profits were exorbitant, when, in truth, Dr. Johnson has here allowed them more than they usually demand.