Pray, my Lord, do you recollect any particulars
that he told you of Lord Peterborough? He is a favourite of mine, and is
not enough known; his character has been only ventilated in party
pamphlets[1030].' Lord Eliot said, if Dr. Johnson would be so good as to
ask him any questions, he would tell what he could recollect.
Accordingly some things were mentioned. 'But, (said his Lordship,) the
best account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, is
in _Captain Carleton's Memoirs_. Carleton was descended of an ancestor
who had distinguished himself at the siege of Derry[1031]. He was an
officer; and, what was rare at that time, had some knowledge of
engineering[1032].' Johnson said, he had never heard of the book. Lord
Eliot had it at Port Eliot; but, after a good deal of enquiry, procured
a copy in London, and sent it to Johnson, who told Sir Joshua Reynolds
that he was going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it,
that he sat up till he had read it through[1033], and found in it such
an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its authenticity[1034];
adding, with a smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been
raised to the peerage,) 'I did not think a _young Lord_ could have
mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known to
me[1035].
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