It was cut out, but an edge
was left to which the new one was attached by paste. The leaf thus
treated begins with the words 'talked with very high respect' (_ante_,
v. 149) and ends 'This day was little better than a blank' (_ante_,
v. 151). This conclusion was perhaps meant to be significant to the
observant reader.
_Boswell's conversation with the King about the title proper to be
given to the Young Pretender._
(Vol. v, p. 185, n. 4.)
Dr. Lort wrote to Bishop Percy on Aug. 15, 1785:--
'Boswell's book [_The Tour to the Hebrides_], I suppose, will be out
in the winter. The King at his levee talked to him, as was natural, on
this subject. Boswell told his majesty that he had another work on the
anvil--a _History of the Rebellion in_ 1745 (_ante_, iii. 162); but
that he was at a loss how to style the principal person who figured
in it. "How would you style him, Mr. Boswell?" "I was thinking, Sire,
of calling him the grandson of the unfortunate James the Second." "That
I have no objection to; my title to the Crown stands on firmer ground
--on an Act of Parliament." This is said to be the _substance_ of a
conversation which passed at the levee. I wish I was certain of the
exact words.'
--Nichols's _Literary History_, vii. 472.
_Shakespeare's popularity_.
(Vol. v, p. 244, n. 2.)
Gibbon, after describing how he used to attend Voltaire's private theatre
at Monrepos in 1757 and 1758, continues:--
'The habits of pleasure fortified my taste for the French theatre, and
that taste has perhaps abated my idolatry for the gigantic genius of
Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of
an Englishman.
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