306 Anecdotes by William Seward, F.R.S.
was necessary in a new parliament for Mr. Shippen to take the oaths of allegiance to George II, when Sir Robert placed himself over against him and smiled whilst he was sworn by the Clerk. Mr. Shippen then came up to him and said ' Indeed, Robin, this is hardly fair V Ib. ii. 335.
In a conversation with Dr. Johnson on the subject of the Due de Montmorenci he said : ' Had I been Richelieu, I could not have found it in my heart to have suffered the first Christian baron to die by the hands of the executioner 2 .' Ib. iii. 234.
Dr. Johnson used to think Voltaire's Life of Charles XII of Sweden one of the finest pieces of historical writing in any language 3 . Ib. iv. 161.
Dr. Johnson said that he had been told by an acquaintance of Sir Isaac Newton, that in early life he started as a clamorous infidel ; but that, as he became more informed on the subject, he was converted to Christianity, and became one of its most zealous defenders 4 . Supplement to Sewarcfs Anecdotes, p. 98.
Dr. Johnson used to advise his friends to be upon their guard against romantic virtue, as being founded upon no settled prin ciple. c A plank,' added he, ' that is tilted up at one end must of course fall down on the other.'
1 ' I love to pour out all myself as 2 ' Son supplice fut juste, si celui
plain de Marillac ne 1'avait pas dte : mais
As downright Shippen, or as old la mort d'un homme de si grande
Montaigne/ esperance, qui avait gagne* des ba-
Pope, Imitations of Horace, Bk. tallies, et que son extreme valeur, sa
ii. Sat. i, 1. 51. ge'nerosite, ses graces avaient rendu
1 Shippen and Sir Robert Walpole cher a toute la France, rendit le
(writes Coxe) had always a personal Cardinal plus odieux que n'avait fait
regard for each other. He was fre- la mort de Marillac.' CEuvres de
quently heard to say, "Robin and Voltaire, ed. 1819, xvi. 101.
I are two honest men. He is for 3 * I admire no historians much
King George and I for King James, except Herodotus, Thucydides, and
but those men with long cravats Tacitus. . . . There is merit, no doubt,
(meaning Sandys, Sir John Rushout, in Hume, Robertson, Voltaire, and
Gybbon, and others) only desire Gibbon. Yet it is not the thing.'
places, either under King George or Macaulay's Life, ed. 1877, ii. 270.
King James ! " Coxe's Memoirs of 4 Life, i. 455. Sir Robert Walpole, ed. 1798. i. 672.
In
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