��Letters of Dr. Johnson.
��I hope Mr. Dilly conveyed to you my Letter on the State of the Nation z from the Author. I know your political principles, and indeed your settled system of thinking upon civil society and subordination, to be according to my own heart. And therefore I doubt not you will approve of my honest zeal. But what monstrous effects of Party do we now see ! I am really vexed at the conduct of some of our friends 2 .
Amidst the conflict, our friend of Port Elliot is with much propriety created a Peer 3 . But why o why did he not obtain the title of Baron Mahogany 4 ? Genealogists and Heralds would have had curious work of it to explain and illustrate that title.
I ever am with sincere regard, My Dear Sir,
Your affectionate
humble servant, JAMES BOSWELL.
��1 Life, iv. 258, 260-1.
2 Johnson wrote to Boswell on Feb. 27 : ' I am very much of your opinion, and, like you, feel great in dignation at the indecency with which the King is every day treated. 3 Ib. iv. 261.
The struggle between the late Co alition Ministry and the King and Pitt was still going on. Among those whom Boswell calls ' our friends ' was Burke.
3 He had been raised to the peer age, under the title of Baron Eliot of St. Germans, in a time of great dis honour. ' Pitt's cousin, Earl Temple, had been in the royal closet, and had there been authorised to let it be known that His Majesty would con sider all who voted for the bill [Fox's India bill] as his enemies. The ignominious commission was per formed ; and instantly a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to be translated,
��and of Scotch peers who wished to be re-elected made haste to change sides.' Macaulay's Misc. Writings, ed. 1871, p. 407. On Dec. 30, 1783, Horace Walpole wrote (Letter 's, viii. 447) : < They are crying Peerages about the streets in barrows, and can get none off.' At the general election of 1780 Eliot had been opposed to the King's party. Gibbon, who lost his seat, writes : ' Mr. Elliot was now deeply engaged in the measures of opposition, and the electors of Liskeard are commonly of the same opinion as Mr. Elliot.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, v. 238.
4 At a dinner at Sir Joshua Rey nolds', in 1781, * Mr. Eliot mentioned a curious liquor peculiar to his country, which the Cornish fisher men drink. They call it Mahogany ; and it is made of two parts gin, and one part treacle, well beaten together.' Life, iv. 78.
JAMES
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