[1212] He made his will in his wife's life-time, and appointed her and Sir William Forbes, or the survivor of them, 'tutors and curators' to his children. Boswelliana, p. 186.
[1213] Head gardener at Stowe, and afterwards at Hampton Court and Windsor. He got his nickname from his habit of saying that grounds which he was asked to lay out had capabilities. Lord Chatham wrote of him:—'He writes Lancelot Brown Esquire, en titre d'office: please to consider, he shares the private hours of—[the King], dines familiarly with his neighbour of Sion [the Duke of Northumberland], and sits down at the tables of all the House of Lords, &c.' Chatham Corres. iv. 178, 430.
[1214] See ante, pp. 334, 350. Clive, before the Committee of the House of Commons, exclaimed:—'By God, Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation.' Macaulay's Essays, iii. 198.
[1215] See ante, p. 216.
[1216] Yet, according to Johnson, 'the poor in England were better provided for than in any other country of the same extent.' Ante, ii. 130.
[1217] See ante, ii. 119.
[1218] See ante, i. 67, note 2.
[1219] The Rev. Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, in the Preface to his valuable edition of Archbishop King's Essay on the Origin of Evil [ed. 1781, p. xvii], mentions that the principles maintained in it had been adopted by Pope in his Essay on Man; and adds, 'The fact, notwithstanding such denial (Bishop Warburton's), might have been strictly verified by an unexceptionable testimony, viz that of the late Lord Bathurst, who saw the very same system of the [Greek: to beltion] (taken from the Archbishop) in Lord Bolingbroke's own hand, lying before Mr. Pope, while he was composing his Essay.' This is respectable evidence; but that of Dr. Blair is more direct from the fountain-head, as well as more full. Let me add to it that of Dr. Joseph Warton; 'The late Lord Bathurst repeatedly assured me that he had read the whole scheme of The Essay on Man, in the hand-writing of Bolingbroke, and drawn up in a series of propositions, which Pope was to versify and illustrate.' Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, vol. ii. p. 62. BOSWELL. In the above short quotation from Law are two parentheses. According to Paley, the Bishop was once impatient at the slowness of his Carlisle printer. '"Why does not my book make its appearance?" said he to the printer. "My Lord, I am extremely sorry; but we have been obliged to send to Glasgow for a pound of parentheses."' Best's Memorials, p. 196.
[1220] Johnson, defining ascertain in its first meaning as establish, quotes from Hooker: 'The divine law ascertaineth the truth of other laws.'
[1221] 'To those who censured his politicks were added enemies yet more dangerous, who called in question his knowledge of Greek, and his qualifications for a translator of Homer. To these he made no publick opposition; but in one of his letters escapes from them as well as he can. At an age like his, for he was not more than twenty-five, with an irregular education, and a course of life of which much seems to have passed in conversation, it is not very likely that he overflowed with Greek. But when he felt himself deficient he sought assistance; and what man of learning would refuse to help him?' Johnson's Works, viii. 252. Johnson refers, I think, to Pope's letter to Addison of Jan. 30, 1713-14.