1874, vii. 271. It was abolished in 1851.
[815] Thomas Carlyle was not fourteen when, one 'dark frosty November morning,' he set off on foot for the University at Edinburgh--a distance of nearly one hundred miles. Froude's Carlyle, i. 22.
[816] Ante, p. 290.
[817] Of the Nature and Use of Lots: a Treatise historicall and theologicall. By Thomas Gataker. London, 1619. The Spirituall Watch, or Christ's Generall Watch-word. By Thomas Gataker. London, 1619.
[818] See ante, p. 264.
[819] He visited it with the Thrales on Sept. 22, 1774, when returning from his tour to Wales, and with Boswell in 1776 (ante, ii. 451).
[820] Mr. Croker says that 'this, no doubt, alludes to Jacob Bryant, the secretary or librarian at Blenheim, with whom Johnson had had perhaps some coolness now forgotten.' The supposition of the coolness seems needless. With so little to go upon, guessing is very hazardous.
[821] Topham Beauclerk, who had married the Duke's sister, after she had been divorced for adultery with him from her first husband Viscount Bolingbroke. Ante, ii. 246, note 1.
[822] See post, Dempster's Letter of Feb. 16, 1775.
[823] See ante, ii. 340, where Johnson said that 'if he were a gentleman of landed property, he would turn out all his tenants who did not vote for the candidate whom he supported.'
[824] See ante, iii. 378.
[825] 'They have opinions which cannot be ranked with superstition, because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the English almanacks, "to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling."' Johnson's Works, ix. 104. Bacon, in his Natural History(No.892) says:--'For the increase of moisture, the opinion received is, that seeds will grow soonest if they be set in the increase of the moon.'
[826] The question which Johnson asked with such unusual warmth might have been answered, 'by sowing the bent, or couch grass.' WALTER SCOTT.
[827] See ante, i. 484.
[828] See ante, i. 483.
[829] It is remarkable, that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying any thing on the subject, which I hoped he would have done. BOSWELL. See ante, p. 128, note 2, and iv. 183, where Boswell 'observed he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his peculiarities.'
[830] In this he was very unlike Swift, who, in his youth, when travelling in England, 'generally chose to dine with waggoners, hostlers, and persons of that rank; and he used to lie at night in houses where he found written of the door Lodgings for a penny. He delighted in scenes of low life.' Lord Orrery's Swift, ed. 1752, p. 33.
[831] This is from the Jests of Hierocles. CROKER.
[832] 'The grave a gay companion shun.' FRANCIS. Horace, 1 Epis. xviii. 89.
[833] Boswell in 1776 found that 'oats were much used as food in Dr. Johnson's own town.' Ante, ii. 463.
[834] Ante, i. 294.
[835] See ante, ii. 258.
[836] 'The richness of the round steep green knolls, clothed with copse, and glancing with cascades, and a pleasant peep at a small fresh-water loch embosomed among them--the view of the bay, surrounded and guarded by the island of Colvay--the gliding of two or three vessels in the more distant Sound--and the row of the gigantic Ardnamurchan mountains closing the scene to the north, almost justify the eulogium of Sacheverell, [post, p. 336] who, in 1688, declared the bay of Tobermory might equal any prospect in Italy.' Lockhart's Scott, iv. 338.
[837] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing, was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who, on his own part, required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 275.
[838] Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (ante, ii. 346). Johnson (Works, vii. 424) says of these Travels:--'Of many parts it is not a very severe censure to say that they might have been written at home.' He adds that 'the book, though awhile neglected, became in time so much the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its price.'
[839] See ante, iii. 254, and iv. 237.
[840] Johnson (Works, viii. 320) says of Pope that 'he had before him not only what his own meditation suggested, but what he had found in other writers that might be accomodated to his present purpose.' Boswell's use of the word is perhaps derived, as Mr. Croker suggests, from accommoder, in the sense of dressing up or cooking meats. This word occurs in an amusing story that Boswell tells in one of his Hypochondriacks (London Mag. 1779, p. 55):--'A friend of mine told me that he engaged a French cook for Sir B. Keen, when ambassador in Spain, and when he asked the fellow if he had ever dressed any magnificent dinners the answer was:--"Monsieur, j'ai accommode un diner qui faisait trembler toute la France."' Scott, in Guy Mannering (ed.