[637] Aul. Gellius, lib. v. c. xiv. BOSWELL.

[638] 'The difficulties in princes' business are many and great; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes, saith Tacitus, to will contradictories. Sunt plerumque regum voluntates vehementes, et inter se contrariae. For it is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean.' Bacon's Essays, No. xix.

[639] Yet Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 30:—'I am now no longer pleased with the delay; you can hear from me but seldom, and I cannot at all hear from you. It comes into my mind that some evil may happen.' Piozzi Letters, i. 148. On Oct. 15 he wrote to Mr. Thrale:—'Having for many weeks had no letter, my longings are very great to be informed how all things are at home, as you and mistress allow me to call it.... I beg to have my thoughts set at rest by a letter from you or my mistress.' Ib. p. 166. See ante, iii. 4.

[640] Sir Walter Scott thus describes Dunvegan in 1814:—'The whole castle occupies a precipitous mass of rock overhanging the lake, divided by two or three islands in that place, which form a snug little harbour under the walls. There is a court-yard looking out upon the sea, protected by a battery, at least a succession of embrasures, for only two guns are pointed, and these unfit for service. The ancient entrance rose up a flight of steps cut in the rock, and passed into this court-yard through a portal, but this is now demolished. You land under the castle, and walking round find yourself in front of it. This was originally inaccessible, for a brook coming down on the one side, a chasm of the rocks on the other, and a ditch in front, made it impervious. But the late Macleod built a bridge over the stream, and the present laird is executing an entrance suitable to the character of this remarkable fortalice, by making a portal between two advanced towers, and an outer court, from which he proposes to throw a draw-bridge over to the high rock in front of the castle.' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 303.

[641]

'Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;
Quae dat Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.'

[642] Johnson says of this castle:—'It is so nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long outlive the reparation. The grandfather of the present laird, in defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time, and applied his money to worse uses.' Works, ix. 64.

[643] Macaulay (Essays, ed. 1843, i. 365) ends a lively piece of criticism on Mr. Croker by saying:—'It requires no Bentley or Casaubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe.'

[644] See ante, i. 180.

[645] Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—'The monument is now nearly ruinous, and the inscription has fallen down.' Lockhart's Scott, iv. 308.