[763] See _ante_, ii. 150.

[764] Sir Alexander Macdonald.

[765] 'To be or not to be: that is the question.' _Hamlet_, act iii. sc.
1.

[766] Virgil, _Eclogues_, iii. III.

[767] 'The stormy Hebrides.' Milton's _Lycidas_, 1. 156.

[768] Boswell was thinking of the passage (p. xxi.) in which Hawkesworth
tells how one of Captain Cook's ships was saved by the wind falling.
'If,' he writes, 'it was a natural event, providence is out of the
question; at least we can with no more propriety say that providentially
the wind ceased, than that providentially the sun rose in the morning.
If it was not,' &c. According to Malone the attacks made on Hawkesworth
in the newspapers for this passage 'affected him so much that from low
spirits he was seized with a nervous fever, which on account of the high
living he had indulged in had the more power on him; and he is supposed
to have put an end to his life by intentionally taking an immoderate
dose of opium.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 441. Mme. D'Arblay says that these
attacks shortened his life. _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 278. He died on
Nov. 17 of this year. See _ante_, i. 252, and ii. 247.

[769] 'After having been detained by storms many days at Sky we left it,
as we thought, with a fair wind; but a violent gust, which Bos had a
great mind to call a tempest, forced us into Col.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.
167. 'The wind blew against us in a short time with such violence, that
we, being no seasoned sailors, were willing to call it a tempest... The
master knew not well whither to go; and our difficulties might, perhaps,
have filled a very pathetick page, had not Mr. Maclean of Col... piloted
us safe into his own harbour.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 117. Sir Walter
Scott says, 'Their risque, in a sea full of islands, was very
considerable. Indeed, the whole expedition was highly perilous,
considering the season of the year, the precarious chance of getting
sea-worthy boats, and the ignorance of the Hebrideans, who,
notwithstanding the opportunities, I may say the _necessities_, of their
situation, are very careless and unskilful sailors.' Croker's
_Boswell_, p. 362.

[770] For as the tempest drives, I shape my way. FRANCIS. [Horace,
_Epistles_, i. 1. 15.] BOSWELL.

[771]

'Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto,
Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi.'
'The youth, whose will no froward tutor bounds,
Joys in the sunny field, his horse and hounds.'

FRA