As an instance, he
tells that the Duke of Perth, then Chancellor of Scotland, pressed him
very much to come over to the Roman Catholick faith: that he resisted
all his Grace's arguments for a considerable time, till one day he felt
himself, as it were, instantaneously convinced, and with tears in his
eyes ran into the Duke's arms, and embraced the ancient religion; that
he continued very steady in it for some time, and accompanied his Grace
to London one winter, and lived in his household; that there he found
the rigid fasting prescribed by the church very severe upon him; that
this disposed him to reconsider the controversy, and having then seen
that he was in the wrong, he returned to Protestantism. I talked of some
time or other publishing this curious life. MRS. THRALE. 'I think you
had as well let alone that publication. To discover such weakness,
exposes a man when he is gone.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, it is an honest picture
of human nature. How often are the primary motives of our greatest
actions as small as Sibbald's, for his re-conversion[641].' MRS. THRALE.
'But may they not as well be forgotten?' JOHNSON. 'No, Madam, a man
loves to review his own mind.
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