[309] See ante, p. 68.

[310] Horace. Odes, i. 2.

[311] See ante, ii. 428.

[312] Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk.  Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—­’Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house and a farm or two adjoining.’  Lockhart’s Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 187.

[313] See ante, ii. 421, note 1.

[314] Since the accession of George I. only one parliament had had so few as five sessions, and it was dissolved before its time by his death.  One had six sessions, six seven sessions, (including the one that was now sitting,) and one eight.  There was therefore so little dread of a sudden dissolution that for five years of each parliament the members durst contradict the populace.

[315] To Miss Burney Johnson once said:—­’Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.’ Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 343.  ’Once at Mr. Thrale’s, when Reynolds left the room, Johnson observed:—­“There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity."’ Northcote’s Reynolds, i. 82.  Burke wrote of him:—­’He had a strong turn for humour, and well saw the weak sides of things.  He enjoyed every circumstance of his good fortune, and had no affectation on that subject.  And I do not know a fault or weakness of his that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.’  Taylor’s Reynolds, ii. 638.

[316] He visited Devonshire in 1762. Ante, i. 377.

[317] Horace Walpole, describing the coronation of George III, writes:—­ ’One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him.  At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt.  It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block.’ Letters, iii. 438.  Sir William Forbes says:—­’He often put me in mind of an ancient Hero, and I remember Dr. Johnson was positive that he resembled Homer’s character of Sarpedon.’ Life of Beattie, ed. 1824, Appendix D. Mrs. Piozzi says:—­’The Earl dressed in his robes at the coronation and Mrs. Siddons in the character of Murphy’s Euphrasia were the noblest specimens of the human race I ever saw.’ Synonymy, i.43.  He sprang from a race of rebels.  ’He united in his person,’ says Forbes, ’the four earldoms of Errol, Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Callander.’  The last two were attainted in 1715, and Kilmarnock in 1745. Life of Beattie, Appendix D.