Nor claims her honours, nor declines,
As the light air of crowds uncertain veers.'
FRANCIS. Horace Odes, iii. 2.
[581] Sir Walter Scott, in a note to Redgauntlet, Letter 1, says:— 'Sir John Nisbett of Dirleton's Doubts and Questions upon the Law especially of Scotland, and Sir James Stewart's Dirleton's Doubts and Questions resolved and answered, are works of authority in Scottish jurisprudence. As is generally the case, the Doubts are held more in respect than the solution.'
[582] When Boswell first made Johnson's acquaintance it was he who suffered from the late hours. Ante, i. 434.
[583] See ante, ii. 312.
[584] Burke, in Present Discontents, says:—'The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less odium, under the name of Influence.' Influence he explains as 'the method of governing by men of great natural interest or great acquired consideration.' Payne's Burke, i. 10, 11. 'Influence,' said Johnson,' must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 18. To political life might be applied what Johnson wrote of domestic life:—'It is a maxim that no man ever was enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 343.
[585] Boswell falls into what he calls 'the cant transmitted from age to age in praise of the ancient Romans.' Ante, i. 311. To do so with Johnson was at once to provoke an attack, for he looked upon the Roman commonwealth as one 'which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind.' Ib. Moreover he disliked appeals to history. 'General history,' writes Murphy (Life, p. 138), 'had little of his regard. Biography was his delight. Sooner than hear of the Punic War he would be rude to the person that introduced the subject.' Mrs. Piozzi says (Anec. p. 80) that 'no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. 'What shall we learn from that stuff?' said he. 'He never,' as he expressed it, 'desired to hear of the Punic War while he lived.' The Punic War, it is clear, was a kind of humorous catch word with him. She wrote to him in 1773:—'So here's modern politics in a letter from me; yes and a touch of the Punic War too.' Piozzi Letters, i. 187. He wrote to her in 1775, just after she had been at the first regatta held in England:—'You will now find the advantage of having made one at the regatta…. It is the good of public life that it supplies agreeable topics and general conversation. Therefore wherever you are, and whatever you see, talk not of the Punic War; nor of the depravity of human nature; nor of the slender motives of human actions; nor of the difficulty of finding employment or pleasure; but talk, and talk, and talk of the regatta.' Ib. p. 260. He was no doubt sick of the constant reference made by writers and public speakers to Rome. For instance, in Bolingbroke's Dissertation upon Parties, we find in three consecutive Letters (xi-xiii) five illustrations drawn from Rome.
[586] It is strange that Boswell does not mention that on this day they met the Duke and Duchess of Argyle in the street. That they did so we learn from Piozzi Letters, i. 386. Perhaps the Duchess shewed him 'the same marked coldness' as at Inverary. Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 25.
[587] At Auchinleck he had 'exhorted Boswell to plant assiduously.' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 4.
[588] See ante, i. 72. In Scotland it was Cocker's Arithmetic that he took with him. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 31. He was not always correct in his calculations. For instance, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Ashbourne less than a fortnight after Boswell's departure: 'Mr. Langdon bought at Nottingham fair fifteen tun of cheese; which, at an ounce a-piece, will suffice after dinner for four-hundred-and-eighty thousand men.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 2. To arrive at this number he must have taken a hundredweight as equal to, not 112, but 100, pounds.
[589] Johnson wrote the next day:—'Boswell is gone, and is, I hope, pleased that he has been here; though to look on anything with pleasure is not very common. He has been gay and good-humoured in his usual way, but we have not agreed upon any other expedition.' Piozzi Letters, i. 384.