of the other. The present Rasay has the late Sir James
Macdonald's sword. Old Rasay joined the Highland army in 1745, but
prudently guarded against a forfeiture, by previously conveying his
estate to the present gentleman, his eldest son[510]. On that occasion,
Sir Alexander, father of the late Sir James Macdonald, was very friendly
to his neighbour. 'Don't be afraid, Rasay,' said he; 'I'll use all my
interest to keep you safe; and if your estate should be taken, I'll buy
it for the family.'--And he would have done it.

Let me now gather some gold dust,--some more fragments of Dr. Johnson's
conversation, without regard to order of time. He said, 'he thought very
highly of Bentley; that no man now went so far in the kinds of learning
that he cultivated[511]; that the many attacks on him were owing to
envy, and to a desire of being known, by being in competition with such
a man; that it was safe to attack him, because he never answered his
opponents, but let them die away[512]. It was attacking a man who would
not beat them, because his beating them would make them live the longer.
And he was right not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing,
he could not but be often enough wrong; so it was better to leave things
to their general appearance, than own himself to have erred in
particulars.' He said, 'Mallet was the prettiest drest puppet about
town, and always kept good company[513]. That, from his way of talking
he saw, and always said, that he had not written any part of the _Life
of the Duke of Marlborough_, though perhaps he intended to do it at some
time, in which case he was not culpable in taking the pension[514]. That
he imagined the Duchess furnished the materials for her _Apology_, which
Hooke wrote, and Hooke furnished the words and the order, and all that
in which the art of writing consists. That the duchess had not superior
parts, but was a bold frontless woman, who knew how to make the most of
her opportunities in life. That Hooke got a _large_ sum of money for
writing her _Apology_[515]. That he wondered Hooke should have been weak
enough to insert so profligate a maxim, as that to tell another's secret
to one's friend is no breach of confidence[516]; though perhaps Hooke,
who was a virtuous man[517], as his _History_ shews, and did not wish
her well, though he wrote her _Apology_, might see its ill tendency, and
yet insert it at her desire. He was acting only ministerially.' I
apprehended, howev