[48] This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. Salmon’s Review.
The following protest is registered in the books of the house of lords:
Dissentient: Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER.
[49] See Mr. Boswell’s doubts on this head; and the point, fully discussed by Malone, and Bindley in the notes to Boswell. Edit. 1816. i. 150, 151. Ed.
[50] On this circumstance, Boswell founds one of his strongest arguments against Savage’s being the son of lady Macclesfield. “If there was such a legacy left,” says Boswell, “his not being able to obtain payment of it, must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real person. The just inference should be, that, by the death of lady Macclesfield’s child before its godmother, the legacy became lapsed; and, therefore, that Johnson’s Savage was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.” With respect for the legal memory of Boswell, we would venture to urge, that the forma pauperis is not the most available mode of addressing an English court; and, therefore, Johnson is not clearly proved wrong by the above argument brought against him. Ed.
[51] He died August 18th, 1712 R.
[52] Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.
[53] Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.
[54] See the Plain Dealer.
[55] The title of this poem was the Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets, 1717. J. B.