vice, which had made you
laugh to see his entry. His style of his letter runs as if he were of
another kingdom.'--Page 643 [648]. BOSWELL.

Sir Walter Scott says:--'I have seen Lady Grange's Journal. She had
become privy to some of the Jacobite intrigues, in which her husband,
Lord Grange (an Erskine, brother of the Earl of Mar, and a Lord of
Session), and his family were engaged. Being on indifferent terms with
her husband, she is said to have thrown out hints that she knew as much
as would cost him his life. The judge probably thought with Mrs.
Peachum, that it is rather an awkward state of domestic affairs, when
the wife has it in her power to hang the husband. Lady Grange was the
more to be dreaded, as she came of a vindictive race, being the
grandchild [according to Mr. Chambers, the child] of that Chiesley of
Dalry, who assassinated Sir George Lockhart, the Lord President. Many
persons of importance in the Highlands were concerned in removing her
testimony. The notorious Lovat, with a party of his men, were the direct
agents in carrying her off; and St. Kilda, belonging then to Macleod,
was selected as the place of confinement. The name by which she was
spoken or written of was _Corpach_, an ominous distinction,
corresponding to what is called _subject_ in the lecture-room of an
anatomist, or _shot_ in the slang of the Westport murderers' [Burke and
Hare]. Sir Walter adds that 'it was said of M'Neil of Barra, that when
he dined, his bagpipes blew a particular strain, intimating that all the
world might go to dinner.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 341.

[629] I doubt the justice of my fellow-traveller's remark concerning the
French literati, many of whom, I am told, have considerable merit in
conversation, as well as in their writings. That of Monsieur de Buffon,
in particular, I am well assured, is highly instructive and
entertaining. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 253.

[630] Horace Walpole, writing of 1758, says:--'Prize-fighting, in which
we had horribly resembled the most barbarous and most polite nations,
was suppressed by the legislature.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_,
iii. 99. According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 5), Johnson said that his
'father's brother, Andrew, kept the ring in Smithfield (where they
wrestled and boxed) for a whole year, and never was thrown or conquered.
Mr. Johnson was,' she continues, 'very conversant in the art of boxing.'
She had heard him descant upon it 'much to the admiration of th