Upon being told this by
Reynolds, he exclaimed, "I should like to try my hand now." On
Boswell's adding that he wished he _had_, Mrs. Thrale writes:
"Boswell had leisure for curiosity: Ministers had not. Boswell would
have been equally amused by his failure as by his success; but to
Lord North there would have been no joke at all in the experiment
ending untowardly."
He was equally ready with advice and encouragement during the
difficulties connected with the brewery. He was not of opinion with
Aristotle and Parson Adams, that trade is below a philosopher[1]; and
he eagerly buried himself in computing the cost of the malt and the
possible profits on the ale. In October 1772, he writes from
Lichfield:
[Footnote 1: "Trade, answered Adams, is below a philosopher, as
Aristotle proves in his first chapter of 'Politics,' and unnatural,
as it is managed now."--_Joseph Andrews_.]
"Do not suffer little things to disturb you. The brew-house must be
the scene of action, and the subject of speculation. The first
consequence of our late trouble ought to be, an endeavour to brew at
a cheaper rate; an endeavour not violent and transient, but steady
and continual, prosecuted with total contempt of censure or wonder,
and animated by resolution not to stop while more can be done. Unless
this can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall
not want help. Surely there is something to be saved; there is to be
saved whatever is the difference between vigilance and neglect,
between parsimony and profusion.
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