77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and
is already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_,
_corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years
before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'A
patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty
of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in
one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent
demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making
patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's
_Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66.
[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217.
[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in
this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for
dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the
dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of
St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests.
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