'
'Very rich mines?' 'No mines.' 'From whence, then, does all this money
come?' 'Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people
of Ireland!'
He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift[116];
for I once took the liberty to ask him, if Swift had personally offended
him, and he told me he had not. He said to-day, 'Swift is clear, but he
is shallow. In coarse humour, he is inferior to Arbuthnot[117]; in
delicate humour, he is inferior to Addison. So he is inferior to his
contemporaries; without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if
the _Tale of a Tub_ was his[118]: it has so much more thinking, more
knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are
indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was _impar
sibi_[119].'
We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or
growse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and so far as wisdom
and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the
palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be deficient.
Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our Deputy Commander in Chief, who was not
only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars I ever
knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in the
authenticity of Ossian's Poetry[120]. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side
of that perplexed question; and I was afraid the dispute would have run
high between them.
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