Grampian Club > Boswelliana

230 BOSWELLIANA.
' it is not the exercise which fatigues, but the hinging upon a
beast.' His father replied, 'What's the matter, man, how a
chield hings, if he dinna hing upon a gallows ? ' "
" When Captain Augustus Hervey was lying in the port of
Leghorn, some of the first people of the country paid him a
visit aboard his ship. He ordered his men to draw up a bucket
of water, and presented it to the nobles, bidding them drink
that. 'Why,' said they, ' 'tis salt water.' ' Is it?' said he. 'Then
know that wherever this water is found the King of Great
Britain is master.' " Captain Wake.
"Mr. Burnet went once into a Presbyterian kirk. The
minister lectured on these words, — ' You shall take no scrip for
your journey.' ' A scrip,' said he, ' my beloved brethren, was a
clockbag, a portmanteau, or a wallise.' " Himself.
" A gentleman was saying at Voltaire's table, ' J'ai lu un telle
chose.' ' Monsieur,' said Voltaire, ' il ne faut pas croire tout ce
qu' on a lu.' ' Monsieur,' replied he, 'j'ai povirtant lu tons vos
ouvrages.' " The Gentleman.
" Boswell said that to be a good rural poet a man must have
an appetite for the beauties of nature as another has for
his dinner. A man who has a poor stomach will never talk
with force of a good dinner ; nor will he whose taste is feeble
talk with force of a fine prospect. This kind of taste must be
felt, and cannot even be imagined by others."
" Boswell said that a dull fool was nothing, as he never showed
himself. The great thing, said he, is to have your fool well
furnished with animal spirits and conceit, and he'll display to
you a rich fund of risibility. He said this at a certain court in
Germany."
" A formal fellow at Paris paid a great many long-winded
compliments to Mademoiselle Amete, the Turk. When he had