ne we pay none at all.

No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours and excise our brains.
Burthens like these vile earthly buildings bear,
No tribute's laid on _Castles_ in the _Air_'

Churchill's _Poems, Night,_ ed. 1766, i. 89.

[147] Pitt, in 1784, laid a tax of ten shillings a year on every horse
'kept for the saddle, or to be put in carriages used solely for
pleasure.'_Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 1028.

[148] In 1763 he published the following description of himself in his
_Correspondence with Erskine_, ed. 1879, p.36. 'The author of the _Ode
to Tragedy_ is a most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the
west of Scotland, upon which he values himself not a little. At his
nativity there appeared omens of his future greatness. His parts are
bright; and his education has been good. He has travelled in
post-chaises miles without number. He is fond of seeing much of the
world. He eats of every good dish, especially apple-pie. He drinks old
hock. He has a very fine temper. He is somewhat of an humorist, and a
little tinctured with pride. He has a good manly countenance, and he
owns himself to be amorous. He has infinite vivacity, yet is observed at
times to have a melancholy cast. He is rather fat than lean, rather
short than tall, rather young than old.' He is oddly enough described in
Arighi's _Histoire de Pascal Paoli_, i. 231, 'En traversant la
Mediterranee sur de freles navires pour venir s'asseoir au foyer de la
nationalite Corse, des hommes _graves_ tels que Boswel et Volney
obeissaient sans doute a un sentiment bien plus eleve qu'au besoin
vulgaire d'une puerile curiosite'

[149] See _ante_, i. 400.

[150] For _respectable_, see _ante_, iii. 241, note 2.

[151] Boswell, in the last of his _Hypochondriacks_, says:--'I perceive
that my essays are not so lively as I expected they would be, but they
are more learned. And I beg I may not be charged with excessive
arrogance when I venture to say that they contain a considerable portion
of original thinking.'_London Mag_. 1783, p. 124.

[152] Burns, in _The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer_, says:--

'But could I like Montgomeries fight,
Or gab like Boswell.'

Boswell and Burns were born within a few miles of each other, Boswell
being the elder by eighteen years.

[153]
'For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,
The best good man, with the worst-natured muse.'

Rochester's _Imitation