Grampian Club > Boswelliana

212 BOSWELLIANA.
" Boswell said that a man is reckoned a wise man rather for
what he does not say than for what he says. Perhaps upon
the whole Zimhcrtongue speaks a greater quantity of good
sense than Manly does. But Limhertongue gives you such
floods of frivolous nonsense that his sense is quite drowned.
Manly gives you unmixed good sense only. Manly will always
be thought the wisest man of the two."
" Dempster, who was a great republican, was presenting an
address one day at court. He was hurt to see subordination
prevail so much, and was shocked to see the keen and able
Lord Marchmont * bowing just like the rest. He said he looked
like a chained eagle at a gentleman's gate." From himseK.
" Mr. Samuel Johnson said that all sceptical innovators were
vain men ; and finding mankind allready {sic) in possession of
Truth, they found they could not gratify their vanity in support-
ing her, and so they have taken to error. Truth (said he) is a cow
which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are
gone to milk the bull." I was present.
" Captain Erskine -^ complained that Boswell's hand was so
large, that his letters contained very little. My lines (said
* Hugh Home, third Earl of Marchmont, was celebrated for his
elegant learning and remarkable powers of debate. He enjoyed the
esteem of Chatham and Walpole. Lord Cobham placed his bust in
the temple of worthies at Stowe ; and Pope, who enjoyed his intimacy,
has thus celebrated him in the grotto at Twickenham, —
" There the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul."
Dr. Johnson entertained a prejudice against him, but was induced
by Boswell to wait on him for his recollections of Pope. Johnson
was received by the earl with much cordiality, and at the close of a
long interview he remarked to Boswell that he " would rather have
given twenty pounds than not have come." Lord Marchmont died
on the 10th January, 17P4, aged eighty-six.
t Captain Andrew Erskine (see supra, pp. 19 — 24).