i. 201, for Beattie's _Essay on Truth_.

[328] Thurot, in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made
descents on some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of
Ireland. In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were
taken. _Gent. Mag_. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the alarm
raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped payment.' _Memoirs
of the Reign of George II_, iii. 224.

[329]

'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.'

Young's _Love of Fame_, sat. i. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 226) says
that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of quotations which some
writers affectedly make use of, observed that he knew a Presbyterian
parson who, for eighteenpence, would furnish any pamphleteer with as
many scraps of Greek and Latin as would pass him off for an
accomplished classic.'

[330] Cowley was quite out of fashion. Richardson (_Corres._ ii. 229)
wrote more than thirty years earlier:--'I wonder Cowley is so absolutely
neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before Richardson, asked,

'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.'

_Imitations of Horace_, Epis. ii. i. 75.

[331] See _ante_, ii. 58, and iii. 276.

[332] 'There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that
arrogantly called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord
Chesterfield) was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the
glasses by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited
thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no
diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately--

"_Accept_ a miracle," &c.'

Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 377. Dr. Maty (_Memoirs of Chesterfield_, i.
227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the scene at Lord Cobham's.
Spence, however, gives Young himself as his authority.

[333] 'Aug. 1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my
nonsense." "No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense
and more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing,
"it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney." "And
yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical look, "I have known
all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried
Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, a fine character, madam. She was
habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a th