[1333] George III told Lord Eldon that at a levee 'he asked Wilkes after his friend Serjeant Glynne. "My friend, Sir!" says Wilkes to the King; "he is no friend of mine." "Why," said the King, "he was your friend and your counsel in all your trials." "Sir," rejoined Wilkes, "he was my counsel—one must have a counsel; but he was no friend; he loves sedition and licentiousness which I never delighted in. In fact, Sir, he was a Wilkite, which I never was." The King said the confidence and humour of the man made him forget at the moment his impudence.' Twiss's Eldon, ii. 356.
[1334] Lord George Gordon and his followers, during these outrages, wore blue ribbands in their hats. MALONE.
[1335] Johnson added:—'All danger here is apparently over; but a little agitation still continues. We frighten one another with a seventy-thousand Scots to come hither with the Dukes of Gordon and Argyle, and eat us, and hang us, or drown us.' Two days later Horace Walpole, after mentioning that Lord George Gordon was in the Tower, continued:—'What a nation is Scotland; in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the Kings that favour it the most. National prejudices, I know, are very vulgar; but if there are national characteristics, can one but dislike the soils and climates that concur to produce them?' Letters, vii. 400.
[1336] He died Nov. 19, 1792, and left 'about, £20,000 accumulated not parsimoniously, but during a very long possession of a profitable office.' His father, who was keeper before him, began as a turnkey. Gent. Mag. 1792, p. 1062. Wesley wrote on Jan. 2, 1761:—'Of all the seats of woe on this side hell, few, I suppose, exceed or even equal Newgate. If any region of horror could exceed it a few years ago, Newgate in Bristol did; so great was the filth, the stench, the misery, and wickedness which shocked all who had a spark of humanity left.' He described a great change for the better which had lately been made in the London Newgate. Perhaps it was due to Akerman. Wesley's Journal, iii. 32.
[1337] There were two city prisons so called.
[1338] In the first two editions will. Boswell, in the third edition, corrected most of his Scotticisms.
[1339] In the Life of Savage (Works, viii. 183) Johnson wrote of the keeper of the Bristol gaol:—'Virtue is undoubtedly most laudable in that state which makes it most difficult; and therefore the humanity of a gaoler certainly deserves this publick attestation; and the man whose heart has not been hardened by such an employment may be justly proposed as a pattern of benevolence. If an inscription was once engraved "to the honest toll-gatherer," less honours ought not to be paid "to the tender gaoler."' This keeper, Dagge by name, was one of Whitefield's disciples. In 1739 Whitefield wrote:—'God having given me great favour in the gaoler's eyes, I preached a sermon on the Penitent Thief, to the poor prisoners in Newgate.' He began to read prayers and preach to them every day, till the Mayor and Sheriffs forbade Mr. Dagge to allow him to preach again. Tyerman's Whitefield, i. 179.
[1340] Vol. ii. p. 163. Mrs. Piozzi has omitted the name, she best knows why. BOSWELL.
[1341] Now settled in London. BOSWELL.
[1342] I had been five years absent from London. BEATTIE.