(8) Dr. Johnson, having read in the newspapers an account of a
masquerade given at Edinburgh, by the Countess Dowager of Fife,
at which Boswell had appeared in the character of a dumb
conjuror, thus wrote to him:--"I have heard of your masquerade.
What says your synod to such innovations? I am not studiously
scrupulous, nor do I think a Masquerade either evil in itself
or very likely to be the occasion of evil, yet, as the world
thinks it a very licentious relaxation of manners, I would not
have been one of the first masquers in a country where no
masquerades had ever been before."-E.



Letter 5 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1770. (page 29)

My company and I have wished for you very much to-day. The
Duchess of Portland, Mrs. Delany, Mr. Bateman, and your cousin,
Fred. Montagu, dined here. Lord Guildford was very obliging,
and would have come if he dared have ventured. Mrs. Montagu
was at Bill-hill with Lady Gower. The day was tolerable, with
sun enough for the house, though not for the garden. You, I
suppose, will never come again, as I have not a team of horses
large enough to draw you out of the clay of Oxfordshire.

I went yesterday to see my niece(9) in her new principality of
Ham. It delighted me and made me peevish. Close to the
Thames, in the centre of all rich and verdant beauty, it is so
blocked up and barricaded with walls, vast trees, and gates,