under consideration is distinguished from all former ones, and that no ill precedent can be established by agreeing to the proposal made by the minister of the day, whoever he happens to be. The late Mr. Charles Townshend happened one day to be in the House of Lords, when he was speaking on some great constitutional question. After parading for a good while in the manner I have mentioned, on the high ground of general liberty, he all of a sudden slided into the doctrine that it was necessary to maintain, in order to prove what the Ministry had done to be constitutional. "What a damn’d crane-necked fellow it is!" said Mr. Townshend, who stood within a few yards of him. Mr. Hutchinson (the late Prime Sergeant and present Provost of the University of Dublin) generally pursues this method in the House of Commons of Ireland.
Lord Mansfield told Mr. Hamilton that what Dr. Johnson says of Pope, that “he was a dull companion,” is not true. “He was very lively and entertaining when at his ease; and in a small company very communicative.”[1]
Pope talking once to Lord Mansfield about posthumous fame, said that the surest method of securing it would be to leave a sum of money to be laid out in an entertainment to be given once every year
- ↑ Lord Mansfield’s account is different from every other, and I believe not true. He is not to be trusted on this head; for he must then have been greatly flattered by being in Pope’s company. Besides, his own conversation was never very brilliant, and he was always very fond of bad jokes and dull stories, so that his taste and judgment on this subject may be suspected.—Mal.
