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[213] 'I should scarcely have regretted my journey, had it affordednothing more than the sight of Aberbrothick.' _Works_, ix. 9.[214] Johnson referred, I believe, to the last of Tillotson's _Sermonspreached upon Several Occasions_, ed. 1673, p. 316, where the preachersays:--'Supposing the _Scripture_ to be a Divine Revelation, and thatthese words (_This is My Body_), if they be in Scripture, mustnecessarily be taken in the strict and literal sense, I ask now, Whatgreater evidence any man has that these words (_This is My Body_) are inthe Bible than every man has that the bread is not changed in thesacrament? Nay, no man has so much, for we have only the evidence of_one_ sense that these words are in the Bible, but that the bread is notchanged we have the concurring testimony of _several_ of our senses.'[215] This also is Tillotson's argument. 'There is no more certainfoundation for it [transubstantiation] in Scripture than for ourSaviour's being substantially changed into all those things which aresaid of him, as that he is a _rock_, a _vine_, a _door_, and a hundredother things.' _Ib_. p. 313.[216] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, exceptye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no lifein you. See _St. John's Gospel_, chap. vi. 53, and followingverses. BOSWELL.[217] See _ante_, p. 26.[218] See _ante_, i. 140, note 5, and v. 50.[219] Johnson, after saying that the inn was not so good as theyexpected, continues:--'But Mr. Boswell desired me to observe that theinnkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as well as Icould.' _Works_, ix. 9.[220] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 29, 1775 (_Piozzi Letters_,i. 292):--' I hope I shall quickly come to Sd catch a littlegaiety among you.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:--'_That_ he nevercaught. He thought and mused at Streatham as he did habituallyeverywhere, and seldom or never minded what was doing about him.' On themargin of i. 315 Baretti has written:--'Johnson mused as much on the roadto Paris as he did in his garret in London as much at a French opera asin his room at Streatham.'[221] _A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson,_ by Thomas Tyers,Esq. See _ante_, iii. 308.[222] This description of Dr. Johnson appears to have been borrowed fromTom Jones, bk. xi. ch. ii. 'The other who, like a ghost, only wanted tobe spoke to, readily answered, '&c. BOSWELL.[223] Perhaps he gave the 'shilling extraordinary' because he 'found achurch,' as he says, 'clean to a degree unknown in any other part ofScotland.' _Works_, ix. 9.[224] See _ante,_ iii. 22.[225] See _ante,_ May 9, 1784. Yet Johnson says (_Works_, ix. 10):--'Themagnetism of Lord Monboddo's conversation easily drew us out ofour way.'[226] There were several points of similarity between them; learning,clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of research on manysubjects which people in general do not investigate. Foote paid LordMonboddo the compliment of saying, that he was an Elzevir editionof Johnson.It has been shrewdly observed that Foote must have meant a diminutive,or _pocket_ edition. BOSWELL. The latter part of this note is not in thefirst edition.[227] Lord Elibank (_post_, Sept. 12) said that he would go five hundredmiles to see Dr. Johnson; but Johnson never said more than he meant.[228] _Works_, ix. 10. Of the road to Montrose he remarks:--'When I hadproceeded thus far I had opportunities of observing, what I had neverheard, that there were many beggars in Scotland. In Edinburgh the theproportion is, I think, not less than in London, and in the smallerplaces it is far greater than in English towns of the same extent. Itmust, however, be allowed that they are not importunate, nor clamorous.They solicit silently, or very modestly.' _Ib._ p. 9. See _post_, p.116, note 2.[229] James Mill was born on April 6, 1773, at Northwater Bridge, parishof Logie Pert, Forfar. The bridge was 'on the great central line ofcommunication from the north of Scotland. The hamlet is right and leftof the high road.' Bain's _Life of James Mill_, p. 1. Boswell andJohnson, on their road to Laurence Kirk, must have passed close to thecottage in which he was lying, a baby not five months old.[230] See _ante_, i. 211.[231] There is some account of him in Chambers's _Traditions ofEdinburgh_, ed. 1825, ii. 173, and in Dr. A. Carlyle's _Auto._ p. 136.[232] G. Chalmers (_Life of Ruddiman_, p. 270) says:--'In May, 1790, LordGardenston declared that he still intended to erect a proper monument inhis village to the memory of the late learned and worthy Mr. Ruddiman.'In 1792 Gardenston, in his _Miscellanies_, p. 257, attacked Ruddiman.'It has of late become fashionable,' he wrote, 'to speak of Ruddiman interms of the highest respect.' The monument was never raised.[233] _A Letter to the Inhabitants of Laurence Kirk_, by F. Garden.[234] 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some haveentertained angels unawares.' _Hebrews_ xiii, 2.[235] This, I find, is considered as obscure. I suppose Dr. Johnsonmeant, that I assiduously and earnestly recommended myself to some ofthe members, as in a canvass for an election into parliament. BOSWELL.See _ante_, ii, 235.[236] Goldsmith in _Retaliation_, a few months later, wrote of WilliamBurke:--'Would you ask for his merits? alas! he had none; What was goodwas spontaneous, his faults were his own.' See _ante_, iii 362, note 2.[237] See _ante_, iii. 260, 390, 425.[238] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 252) wrote of Monboddo in 1782:--'He issuch an extravagant adorer of the ancients, that he scarcely allows theEnglish language to be capable of any excellence, still less the French.He said we moderns are entirely degenerated. I asked in what? "Ineverything," was his answer. He loves slavery upon principle. I askedhim how he could vindicate such an enormity. He owned it was becausePlutarch justified it. He is so wedded to system that, as LordBarrington said to me the other day, rather than sacrifice his favouriteopinion that men were born with tails, he would be contented to wearone himself.'[239] Scott, in a note on _Guy Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 267, writes ofMonboddo:--'The conversation of the excellent old man, his high,gentleman-like, chivalrous spirit, the learning and wit with which hedefended his fanciful paradoxes, the kind and liberal spirit of hishospitality, must render these _noctes coenaeque_ dear to all who, likethe author (though then young), had the honour of sitting at his board.'[240] Lord Cockburn, writing of the title that Jeffrey took when he wasraised to the Bench in 1834, said:--'The Scotch Judges are styled_Lords_; a title to which long usage has associated feelings ofreverence in the minds of the people, who could not now be soon made torespect or understand _Mr. Justice_. During its strongly feudalisedcondition, the landholders of Scotland, who were almost the sole judges,were really known only by the names of their estates. It was an insult,and in some parts of the country it is so still, to call a laird by hispersonal, instead of his territorial, title. But this assumption of twonames, one official and one personal, and being addressed by the one andsubscribing by the other, is wearing out, and will soon disappearentirely.' Cockburn's _Jeffrey_, i. 365. See _post_, p. 111, note 1.[241] _Georgics_, i. 1.[242] Walter Scott used to tell an instance of Lord Monboddo'sagricultural enthusiasm, that returning home one night after an absence(I think) on circuit, he went out with a candle to look at a field ofturnips, then a novelty in Scotland. CROKER.[243] Johnson says the same in his _Life of John Philips_, and adds:--'This I was told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whoseexperience was, that "there were many books written on the same subjectin prose, which do not contain so much truth as that poem."' _Works_,vii. 234. Miller is mentioned in Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 352:--'There isextreme taste in the park [Hagley]: the seats are not the best, butthere is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle built by Miller,that would get him his freedom, even of Strawberry: it has the true rustof the Barons' Wars.'[244] See _ante_, p. 27.[245] My note of this is much too short. _Brevis esse laboro, obscurusfio_. ['I strive to be concise, I prove obscure.' FRANCIS. Horace, _ArsPoet_. l. 25.] Yet as I have resolved that _the very Journal which Dr.Johnson read_, shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand thetext in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a wordto complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation, in thewriting; neither of which can be said to change the genuine _Journal_.One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfectpassage above was probably as follows: 'In his book we have an accuratedisplay of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant isdelineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest-sport, and themodes of ancient theft are described.' BOSWELL. 'One of the bestcriticks is, I believe, Malone, who had 'perused the originalmanuscript.' See _ante_, p. 1; and _post_, Oct. 26, and under Nov. 11.[246] It was in the Parliament-house that 'the ordinary Lords ofSession,' the Scotch Judges, that is to say, held their courts._Ante_, p. 39.[247] Dr. Johnson modestly said, he had not read Homer so much as hewished he had done. But this conversation shews how well he wasacquainted with the Maeonian bard; and he has shewn it still more in hiscriticism upon Pope's _Homer_, in his _Life_ of that Poet. My excellentfriend, Mr. Langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute betweenDr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the comparative merits of Homer andVirgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on both sides.Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer. BOSWELL. Johnson toldWindham that he had never read through the Odyssey in the original.Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. See _ante_, iii. 193, and May 1, 1783.[248] Johnson ten years earlier told Boswell that he loved most 'thebiographical part of literature.' _Ante_, i. 425. Goldsmith said ofbiography:--'It furnishes us with an opportunity of giving advice freelyand without offence.... Counsels as well as compliments are bestconveyed in an indirect and oblique manner, and this renders biographyas well as fable a most convenient vehicle for instruction. An ingeniousgentleman was asked what was the best lesson for youth; he answered,"The life of a good man." Being again asked what was the next best, hereplied, "The life of a bad one."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 395.[249] See _ante_, p. 57.[250] Ten years later he said:--'There is now a great deal morelearning in the world than there was formerly; for it is universallydiffused.' _Ante_, April 29,1783. Windham (_Diary_, p. 17) records'Johnson's opinion that I could not name above five of my collegeacquaintances who read Latin with sufficient ease to make itpleasurable.'[251] See _ante_, ii. 352.[252] 'Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook withoutsolicitation to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing himfrom the imputation of favouring fatality, or rejecting revelation; andfrom month to month continued a vindication of the _Essay on Man_ in theliterary journal of that time, called the _Republick of Letters'_Johnson's _Works_, viii. 289. Pope wrote to Warburton of the _Essay onMan_:--'You understand my work better than I do myself.' Pope's _Works_,ed. 1886, ix. 211.[253] See _ante_, ii. 37, note I, and Pope's _Works_, ed. 1886, ix. 220.Allen was Ralph Allen of Prior Park near Bath, to whom Fieldingdedicated _Amelia_, and who is said to have been the original ofAllworthy in _Tom Jones_. It was he of whom Pope wrote:--'Let low-born Allen, with an awkward shame,Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.'_Epilogue to the Satires_, i. 135._Low-born_ in later editions was changed to _humble_. Warburton not onlymarried his niece, but, on his death, became in her right owner ofPrior Park.[254] Mr. Mark Pattison (_Satires of Pope_, p. 158) points outWarburton's 'want of penetration in that subject [metaphysics] which heconsidered more peculiarly his own.' He said of 'the late Mr. Baxter'(Andrew Baxter, not Richard Baxter), that 'a few pages of his reasoninghave not only more sense and substance than all the elegant discoursesof Dr. Berkeley, but infinitely better entitle him to the character of agreat genius.'[255] It is of Warburton that Churchill wrote in _The Duellist (Poems,_ed. 1766, ii. 82):--'To prove his faith which all admitIs at least equal to his wit,And make himself a man of note,He in defence of Scripture wrote;So long he wrote, and long about it,That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it.'[256] I find some doubt has been entertained concerning Dr. Johnson'smeaning here. It is to be supposed that he meant, 'when a king shallagain be entertained in Scotland.' BOSWELL.[257] Perhaps among these ladies was the Miss Burnet of Monboddo, onwhom Burns wrote an elegy.[258] In the _Rambler_, No. 98, entitled _The Necessity of CultivatingPoliteness_, Johnson says:--'The universal axiom in which allcomplaisance is included, and from which flow all the formalities whichcustom has established in civilized nations, is, _That no man shall giveany preference to himself.'_ In the same paper, he says that'unnecessarily to obtrude unpleasing ideas is a species of oppression.'[259] Act ii. sc. 5.[260] Perhaps he was referring to Polyphemus's club, which was'Of height and bulk so vastThe largest ship might claim it for a mast.'Pope's _Odyssey_, ix. 382.Or to Agamemnon's sceptre:--'Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear.'_Iliad_, i. 310.[261] 'We agreed pretty well, only we disputed in adjusting the claimsof merit between a shopkeeper of London and a savage of the Americanwildernesses. Our opinions were, I think, maintained on both sideswithout full conviction; Monboddo declared boldly for the savage, and I,perhaps for that reason, sided with the citizen.' _Piozzi Letters_,i. 115.[262]'Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;The whole strange purpose of their lives to find,Or make, an enemy of all mankind!Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.'_Essay on Man,_ iv. 219.[263] _Maccaroni_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_. Horace Walpole(_Letters_, iv. 178) on Feb. 6, 1764, mentions 'the Maccaroni Club,which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls andspying-glasses.' On the following Dec. 16 he says:--'The Maccaroni Clubhas quite absorbed Arthur's; for, you know, old fools will hobble afteryoung ones.' _Ib._ p. 302. See _post_, Sept. 12, for _buck_.[264] 'We came late to Aberdeen, where I found my dear mistress'sletter, and learned that all our little people were happily recovered ofthe measles. Every part of your letter was pleasing.' _Piozzi Letters_,i. 115. For Johnson's use of the word _mistress_ in speaking of Mrs.Thrale see _ante_, i. 494.[265] See _ante_, ii. 455. 'They taught us,' said one of the Professors,'to raise cabbage and make shoes, How they lived without shoes may yetbe seen; but in the passage through villages it seems to him thatsurveys their gardens, that when they had not cabbage they had nothing.'_Piozzi Letters_, i. 116. Johnson in the same letter says that 'NewAberdeen is built of that granite which is used for the _new_ pavementin London.'[266] 'In Aberdeen I first saw the women in plaids.' _Piozzi Letters_,i. 116.[267] Seven years later Mackintosh, on entering King's College, foundthere the son of Johnson's old friend, 'the learned Dr. Charles Burney,finishing his term at Aberdeen.' Among his fellow-students were alsosome English Dissenters, among them Robert Hall. Mackintosh's _Life,_ i.10, 13. In Forbes's _Life of Beattie_ (ed. 1824, p. 169) is a letter byBeattie, dated Oct. 15, 1773, in which the English and ScotchUniversities are compared. Colman, in his _Random Records,_ ii. 85,gives an account of his life at Aberdeen as a student.[268] Lord Bolingbroke (Works, iii. 347) in 1735 speaks of 'the littlecare that is taken in the training up our youth,' and adds, 'surely itis impossible to take less.' See _ante_, ii. 407, and iii. 12.[269] _London, 2d May_, 1778. Dr. Johnson acknowledged that he washimself the authour of the translation above alluded to, and dictated itto me as follows:--Quos laudet vates Graius Romanus et AnglusTres tria temporibus secla dedere suis.Sublime ingenium Graius; Romanus habebatCarmen grande sonans; Anglus utrumque tulit.Nil majus Natura capit: clarare prioresQuae potuere duos tertius unus habet. BOSWELL.It was on May 2, 1778, that Johnson attacked Boswell with such rudenessthat he kept away from him for a week. _Ante_, iii. 337.[270] 'We were on both sides glad of the interview, having not seen norperhaps thought on one another for many years; but we had no emulation,nor had either of us risen to the other's envy, and our old kindness waseasily renewed.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 117.[271] Johnson wrote on Sept. 30:--'Barley-broth is a constant dish, andis made well in every house. A stranger, if he is prudent, will securehis share, for it is not certain that he will be able to eat anythingelse.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. p. 160.[272] See _ante_. p. 24.[273] _Genesis_, ix. 6.[274] My worthy, intelligent, and candid friend, Dr. Kippis, informs me,that several divines have thus explained the mediation of our Saviour.What Dr. Johnson now delivered, was but a temporary opinion; for heafterwards was fully convinced of the _propitiatory sacrifice_, as Ishall shew at large in my future work, _The Life of Samuel Johnson,LL.D._ BOSWELL. For Dr. Kippis see _ante_, iii. 174, and for Johnson onthe propitiatory sacrifice, iv. 124.[275] _Malachi_, iv. 2.[276] _St. Luke_, ii 32.[277] 'Healing _in_ his wings,'_Malachi_, iv. 2.[278] 'He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he thatbelieveth not shall be damned.' _St. Mark_, xvi. 16.[279] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254, 265.[280] Spedding's _Bacon_, vii. 271. The poem is also given in _TheGolden Treasury_, p. 37; where, however, 'limns _the_ water' is changedinto 'limns _on_ water.'[281] 'Addison now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literaryoccupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death ofSocrates... He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the Christianreligion, of which part was published after his death.' Johnson's