(422) Dr. Richard Brocklesby, an eminent physician.  He had been examined before the House of Commons, as to Mr. Wilkes’s incapacity to attend in his place.  His Whig politics, which probably induced Mr. Wilkes to sen@ for him, induced the majority of the House to distrust his report, and to order two other medical men to visit the patient.  This proceeding implied a doubt of Dr. Brocklesby’s veracity, which certainly called for,@ the interference of Mr. Charles Townshend, who was a private as well as a political friend of the doctor’s.  Dr. Brocklesby, besides being one of the first physicians of his time, was a man of literature and taste, and did not confine his society nor his beneficence to those who agreed with him in politics.  He was the friend and physician of Dr. Johnson, and when, towards the close of this great man’s life, it was supposed that his circumstances were not quite easy, Dr. Brocklesby generously pressed him to accept an annuity of one hundred pounds, and he attended him to his death with unremitted affection and care.-C.

(423) John, third Earl of Waldegrave, a general in the army:  in 1770 master of the horse to the Queen.-E.

(424) Lord Henley; afterwards Earl of Northington.

(425) Lord Hardwicke.

(426) John, second Earl of Ashburnham; one of the lords of the bedchamber, and keeper of the parks.-E.

(427) By La Harpe.  This play, written when the author was only twenty-three years old, raised him into great celebrity; and is, in the opinion of the French critics, his first work in merit as well as date.-C.

(428) This phrase has been also attributed to Mademoiselle de Montmorency, afterwards Princess de Cond`e, in reply to the solicitations of Henry iv.; and is told also of Mademoiselle de Rohan, afterwards Duchess of Deux Ponts.-C.

Letter 187 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, Jan. 11, 1764. (page 266)

It is an age, I own, since I wrote to you; but except politics, what was there to send you? and for politics, the present are too contemptible to be recorded by any body but journalists, gazetteers, and such historians!  The ordinary of Newgate, or Mr. * * * * who write for their monthly half-crown, and who are indifferent whether Lord Bute, Lord Melcombe, or Maclean is their hero, may swear they find diamonds on dunghills; but you will excuse me, if I let our correspondence lie dormant rather than deal in such trash.  I am forced to send Lord Hertford and Sir Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does claret; but unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we can laugh together; the best employment for friends, who do not mean to pick one another’s pocket, nor make a property of either’s frankness.  Instead of politics, therefore, I shall amuse you to-day with a fairy tale.