Thrale:--'We are not
far from the great year of a hundred thousand barrels, which, if three
shillings be gained upon each barrel, will bring us fifteen thousand
pounds a year.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 357. We may see how here, as
elsewhere, he makes himself almost one with the Thrales.
[601] See _ante_, p. 97.
[602] Mrs. Aston. BOSWELL.
[603] See _State Trials_, vol. xi. p. 339, and Mr. Hargrave's
argument. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 87.
[604] The motto to it was happily chosen:--
'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.'
I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance no less strange than true, that
a brother Advocate in considerable practice, but of whom it certainly
cannot be said, _Ingenuas didicit fideliter artes_, asked Mr. Maclaurin,
with a face of flippant assurance, 'Are these words your own?' BOSWELL.
Sir Walter Scott shows where the humour of this motto chiefly lay. 'The
counsel opposite,' he writes, 'was the celebrated Wight, an excellent
lawyer, but of very homely appearance, with heavy features, a blind eye
which projected from its socket, a swag belly, and a limp. To him
Maclaurin applied the lines of Virgil:--
'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses,
O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori.
Pages:
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809