any change in the state of the question?
Does it not imply hopes that the Judges will change their opinion? Is
not uncertainty and inconstancy in the highest degree disreputable to a
Court? Does it not suppose, that the former judgement was temerarious or
negligent? Does it not lessen the confidence of the publick? Will it not
be said, that _jus est aut incognitum aut vagum?_ and will not the
consequence be drawn, _misera est servitus[420]?_ Will not the rules of
action be obscure? Will not he who knows himself wrong to-day, hope that
the Courts of Justice will think him right to-morrow? Surely, my Lords,
these are attempts of dangerous tendency, which the Solicitors, as men
versed in the law, should have foreseen and avoided. It was natural for
an ignorant printer to appeal from the Lord Ordinary; but from lawyers,
the descendants of lawyers, who have practised for three hundred years,
and have now raised themselves to a higher denomination, it might be
expected, that they should know the reverence due to a judicial
determination; and, having been once dismissed, should sit down
in silence.'

I am ashamed to mention, that the Court, by a plurality of voices,
without having a single additional circumstance before them, reversed
their own judgement, made a serious matter of this dull and foolish
joke, and adjudged Mr. Robertson to pay to the Society five pounds
(sterling money) and costs of suit. The decision will seem strange to
English lawyers.

On Tuesday, June 5, Johnson was to return to London. He was very
pleasant at breakfast; I mentioned a friend of mine having resolved
never to marry a pretty woman. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a very foolish
resolution to resolve not to marry a pretty woman. Beauty is of itself
very estimable. No, Sir, I would prefer a pretty woman, unless there are
objections to her. A pretty woman may be foolish; a pretty woman may be
wicked; a pretty woman may not like me. But there is no such danger in
marrying a pretty woman as is apprehended: she will not be persecuted if
she does not invite persecution. A pretty woman, if she has a mind to be
wicked, can find a readier way than another; and that is all.'

I accompanied him in Mr. Dilly's chaise to Shefford, where talking of
Lord Bute's never going to Scotland, he said, 'As an Englishman, I
should wish all the Scotch gentlemen should be educated in England;
Scotland would become a province; they would spend all their rents in
England.' This is