| Citation |
MG-A(G.773.024
1 Apr 1773:23,31 (1438)
. . . [in an essay by Boucher addressed to William Paca, the
following reference:]
I must have supposed my literary fame to be at low ebb,
indeed, when I conceived the hope of riggling myself into
importance, by a trial of skill, with a penman, who cannot
even spell; with a penman, who could call the common word,
malt-kin, a Scotch law term; and argue that the Christian
aera commenced in the time of Julius Caesar, because mention
was made of Caesar in the New Testament, as though there had
been no other Caesar, than the Dictator; a man, in short,
who because Mr. Garrick wrote a farce, which he called
Aesop, or Lethe, imagines, that Lethe must, some how or
other, belong to Aesop. I was influenced by no such
notices: an honest desire to shew the good people of
Maryland, by an appeal to themselves, in a plain case, of
which every man can judge, that you neither are such sound
lawyers . . . [22 lines] when the bells had certainly
tolled an adieu to the forty per poll act, than now, when,
from the futility and absurdity of your legal knowledge, on
other subjects, many people, on good ground, believe, that
your boasted opinion will turn out to be equally
insignificant.
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