This, of course, was imaginary. The metropolis recovered its tranquility. The king, on his side, regained his equanimity. At a levee, held in December, his Majesty and Lord Derby disputed pretty loudly as to the numbers of the rebels. ‘Sir,’ said Lord Derby, who had just arrived from Lancashire, whoever tells you the rebels are fewer than 10,000 deceives you;’ which was, as Mr. Harris writes, thought to be a pretty strong expression for his Lordship to use to the king. At a court held a day or two later, Sir Harry Liddel, just from the north, was asked by his Majesty what Sir Harry held the rebel force to be? He answered about 7,000, to which estimate the king seemed to assent; but this did not prevent the whole Court and City from falling into the utmost panic again before the end of December. The alternation of hope and fear however passed suddenly into confidence, when, as the year ended, news reached the London coffee-houses that young Cumberland was likely to turn the tide of rebel success. Carlisle was evidently on the point of surrendering, and this important event took place at the close of the year 1745. Down to that close, traitors were as closely looked for in London as rebels were now pursued in their retreat. Whether through delicacy or ignorance, the style in which a successful ‘take’ of traitors was made was comically mysterious. For example, in this month of December, the papers announced that ‘A Musician who resided some years in London as a foreign Nobleman, and an Irish Comedian who has acted five years on the English Stage, were committed to the Marshalsea for High Treason.’ [Sidenote: _JOHNSON AND LORD GOWER._] In this eventful year, Jacobite Johnson was quietly engaged on his Dictionary. Aloof from the fray, he could not forbear flinging a stone on an ex-Jacobite who had ratted. When he came to the word ‘renegade,’ he remembered Lord Gower’s abandonment of the old Jacobite interest, for place at Court; and his prejudice prompted him to make Lord Gower infamous for ever, by adding his name to the vocabulary of slang. ‘When I came to the word _renegade_,’ he said to Boswell, ‘after telling that it meant “one who deserts to the enemy; a revolter,” I added, “sometimes we say a GOWER.” Thus it went to the press; but the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out.’ Another distinguished man was looking on events with an indifference which seems affectation. ◆[Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE._]◆ ‘I expect no good news,’ writes Bolingbroke to Marchmont, in September, ‘and am therefore contented to have none. I wait with much resignation to know to what Lion’s paw we are to fall.’ [Illustration: Scrollwork] [Illustration: Decorative banner] CHAPTER VI. (1746.)