expressed a wish she should come out to that Island, and expatiated on the comforts and happiness of her situation.  The poor girl went out:  her cousin was much surprised, and asked her how she could think of coming.  “Because, (said she,) you invited me.”  “Not I,” answered the cousin.  The letter was then produced.  “I see it is true, (said she,) that I did invite you:  but I did not think you would come.”  They lodged her in an out-house, where she passed her time miserably; and as soon as she had an opportunity she returned to England.  Always tell this, when you hear of people going abroad to relations, upon a notion of being well received.  In the case which you mention, it is probable the clergyman spends all he gets, and the physician does not know how much he is to get.’

We this day dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, with General Paoli, Lord Eliot, (formerly Mr. Eliot, of Port Eliot,) Dr. Beattie, and some other company.  Talking of Lord Chesterfield;—­JOHNSON.  ’His manner was exquisitely elegant[1025], and he had more knowledge than I expected.’  BOSWELL.  ’Did you find, Sir, his conversation to be of a superiour style?’ JOHNSON.  ’Sir, in the conversation which I had with him I had the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.’  Lord Eliot, who had travelled at the same time with Mr. Stanhope[1026], Lord Chesterfield’s natural son, justly observed, that it was strange that a man who shewed he had so much affection for his son as Lord Chesterfield did, by writing so many long and anxious letters to him, almost all of them when he was Secretary of State[1027], which certainly was a proof of great goodness of disposition, should endeavour to make his son a rascal.  His Lordship told us, that Foote had intended to bring on the stage a father who had thus tutored his son, and to shew the son an honest man to every one else, but practising his father’s maxims upon him, and cheating him[1028].  JOHNSON.  ’I am much pleased with this design; but I think there was no occasion to make the son honest at all.  No; he should be a consummate rogue:  the contrast between honesty and knavery would be the stronger.  It should be contrived so that the father should be the only sufferer by the son’s villainy, and thus there would be poetical justice.’

He put Lord Eliot in mind of Dr. Walter Harte[1029].  ’I know (said he,) Harte was your Lordship’s tutor, and he was also tutor to the Peterborough family.  Pray, my Lord, do you recollect any particulars that he told you of Lord Peterborough?  He is a favourite of mine, and is not enough known; his character has been only ventilated in party pamphlets[1030].’  Lord Eliot said, if Dr. Johnson would be so good as to ask him any questions, he would tell what he could recollect.  Accordingly some things were mentioned.  ’But, (said his Lordship,) the best account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, is in Captain Carleton’s Memoirs.  Carleton was descended of an ancestor who had distinguished