_Post_, April 6, 1781.
[193] See p. 7 of this volume. BOSWELL.
[194] 'Indifferent in his choice to sleep or die.' Addison's _Cato_,
act v. sc. 1.
[195] See _ante_, i. 485.
[196] He was at this time 'employed by Congress as a private and
confidential agent in England.' Dr. Franklin had arranged for letters to
be sent to him, not by post but by private hand, under cover to his
brother, Mr. Alderman Lee. Franklin's _Memoirs_, ii. 42, and iii. 415.
[197] When Wilkes the year before, during his mayoralty, had presented
An Address, 'the King himself owned he had never seen so well-bred a
Lord Mayor.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 484.
[198] Johnson's _London, a Poem_, v. 145. BOSWELL--
'How when competitors like these contend,
Can surly virtue hope to fix a friend.'
[199] See _ante_, ii. 154.
[200] Johnson had said much the same at a dinner in Edinburgh. See
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773. See _ante_, March 15, 1776, and
_post_, Sept. 21, 1777.
[201] 'To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him
against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of
human abilities.
Pages:
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686