[998] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'I was not much pleased with any of the Professors.' Piozzi Letters, i. 199. Mme. D'Arblay says:— 'Whenever Dr. Johnson did not make the charm of conversation he only marred it by his presence, from the general fear he incited, that if he spoke not, he might listen; and that if he listened, he might reprove.' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 187. See ante, ii. 63
[999] Boswell has not let us see this caution. When Robertson first came in, 'there began,' we are told, 'some animated dialogue' (ante, p.32). The next day we read that 'he fluently harangued to Dr. Johnson' (ante, p.43).
[1000] See ante, iii. 366.
[1001] He was Ambassador at Paris in the beginning of the reign of George I., and Commander-in-Chief in 1744. Lord Mahon's England, ed. 1836, i. 201 and iii. 275.
[1002] The unwilling gratitude of base mankind. POPE. [Imitations of Horace, 2 Epis. i. 14.] BOSWELL.
[1003] Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, i. 246-253) gives a curious account of Lord Loudoun, who was general in America about the year 1756. 'Indecision,' he says, 'was one of the strongest features of his character.' He kept back the packet-boats from day to day because he could not make up his mind to send his despatches. At one time there were three boats waiting, one of which was kept with cargo and passengers on board three months beyond its time. Pitt at length recalled him, because 'he never heard from him, and could not know what he was doing.'
[1004] See Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xi. 161 for an account of a controversy about the identity of this writer with an historian of the same name.
[1005] He had paid but little attention to his own rule. See ante, ii. 119.
[1006] 'I believe that for all the castles which I have seen beyond the Tweed, the ruins yet remaining of some one of those which the English built in Wales would supply Materials.' Johnson's Works, ix. 152.
[1007] See ante, p. 40, note 4.