BOSWELL.
[185] It is curious to observe that Lord Thurlow has here, perhaps in
compliment to North Britain, made use of a term of the Scotch Law, which
to an English reader may require explanation. To _qualify_ a wrong, is
to point out and establish it. BOSWELL.
[186]
'Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi,
Et quorum pars magna fui.'
'Which thing myself unhappy did behold,
Yea, and was no small part thereof.'
Morris, _Aeneids_, ii. 5.
[187] In the year 1770, in _The False Alarm_, Johnson attacked Wilkes
with more than 'some asperity.' 'The character of the man,' he wrote, 'I
have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill
of him, of whom no man speaks well.' He called him 'a retailer of
sedition and obscenity;' and he said:--'We are now disputing ... whether
Middlesex shall be represented, or not, by a criminal from a gaol.'
_Works_, vi. 156, 169, 177. In _The North Briton_, No. xii, Wilkes,
quoting Johnson's definition of a pensioner, asks:--'Is the said Mr.
Johnson a _dependant_? or is he _a slave of state, hired by a stipend
to obey his master_? There is, according to him, no alternative.--As Mr.
Johnson has, I think, failed in this account, may I, after so great an
authority, venture at a short definition of so intricate a word? A
_pension_ then I would call _a gratuity during the pleasure of the
Prince for services performed, or expected to be performed, to himself,
or to the state_.
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