'[Letter from Johnson to Boswell] I have now three parcels of Lord Hailes's history, which I purpose to return all the next week: that his respect for my little observations should keep his work in suspense makes one of the evils of my journey. It is in our language, I think, a new mode of history which tells all that is wanted, and, I suppose, all that is known, without laboured splendour of language, or affected subtilty of conjecture. The exactness of his dates raises my wonder. He seems to have the closeness of Renault without his constraint. Mrs. Thrale was so entertained with your "Journal" that she almost read herself blind. She has a great regard for you'.