' But upon the whole, he was very much
pleased. He said, 'This is one of the places I do not regret having come
to see. It is a very stately place, indeed; in the house magnificence is
not sacrificed to convenience, nor convenience to magnificence. The
library is very splendid: the dignity of the rooms is very great; and
the quantity of pictures is beyond expectation, beyond hope.'
It happened without any previous concert, that we visited the seat of
Lord Bute upon the King's birthday; we dined and drank his Majesty's
health at an inn, in the village of Luton.
In the evening I put him in mind of his promise to favour me with a copy
of his celebrated Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, and he was at last
pleased to comply with this earnest request, by dictating it to me from
his memory; for he believed that he himself had no copy[414]. There was
an animated glow in his countenance while he thus recalled his
high-minded indignation.
He laughed heartily at a ludicrous action in the Court of Session, in
which I was Counsel. The Society of _Procurators_, or Attornies,
entitled to practise in the inferiour courts at Edinburgh, had obtained
a royal charter, in which they had taken care to have their ancient
designation of Procurators changed into that of _Solicitors_, from a
notion, as they supposed, that it was more genteel[415]; and this new
title they displayed by a publick advertisement for a _General Meeting_
at their HALL.
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