[159] See _ante_. ii. 229.
[160] My friend, General Campbell, Governour of Madras, tells me, that
they made _speldings_ in the East-Indies, particularly at Bombay, where
they call them _Bambaloes_. BOSWELL. Johnson had told Boswell that he
was 'the most _unscottified_ of his countrymen.'_Ante_, ii. 242.
[161] 'A small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited,
though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their
notice.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 1.
[162] 'The remains of the fort have been removed to assist in
constructing a very useful lighthouse upon the island. WALTER SCOTT.
[163]
'Unhappy queen!
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state.'
Dryden. [_Aeneid_, vi. 460.] BOSWELL.
[164] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 331) says of his journey to London in
1758:--'It is to be noted that we could get no four-wheeled chaise
till we came to Durham, those conveyances being then only in their
infancy. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.'
'It affords a southern stranger,' wrote Johnson (_Works_ ix. 2), 'a new
kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption of
toll-gates.'
[165] See _ante_, iii. 265, for Lord Shelburne's statement on this
subject.
[166] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 205, note 4.
[167] See _ante_, iii. 46.
[168] The passage quoted by Dr. Johnson is in the _Character of the
Assembly-man_; Butler's _Remains_, p. 232, edit. 1754:--'He preaches,
indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails at Popery, when
the land is almost lost in Presbytery; and would cry Fire! Fire! in
Noah's flood.'
There is reason to believe that this piece was not written by Butler,
but by Sir John Birkenhead; for Wood, in his _Athenae Oxonienses_, vol.
ii. p. 640, enumerates it among that gentleman's works, and gives the
following account of it:
_'The Assembly-man_ (or the character of an assembly-man) written 1647,
_Lond._ 1662-3, in three sheets in qu. The copy of it was taken from the
author by those who said they could not rob, because all was theirs; so
excised what they liked not; and so mangled and reformed it, that it was
no character of an Assembly, but of themselves. At length, after it had
slept several years, the author published it to avoid false copies. It
is also reprinted in a book entit. _Wit and Loyalty revived_, in a
collection of some smart satyrs in verse and prose on the late times.
_Lond._ 1682, qu. said to be written by Abr. Cowley, Sir John
Birkenhead, and Hudibras, alias Sam. Butler.'--For this information I am
indebted to Mr. Reed, of Staple Inn. BOSWELL. This tract is in the
_Harleian Misc_., ed. 1810, vi. 57. Mr. Reed's quotation differs
somewhat from it.
[169] 'When a Scotchman was talking against Warburton, Johnson said he
had more literature than had been imported from Scotland since the days
of Buchanan. Upon the other's mentioning other eminent writers of the
Scotch; "These will not do," said Johnson, "Let us have some more of
your northern lights; these are mere farthing candles."' Johnson's
_Works_ (1787), xi. 208. Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 61) that
at the dinner at Mr. Dilly's, described _ante_, ii. 338, 'Dr. Johnson
compared England and Scotland to two lions, the one saturated with his
belly full, and the other prowling for prey. He defied any one to
produce a classical book written in Scotland since Buchanan. Robertson,
he said, used pretty words, but he liked Hume better; and neither of
them would he allow to be more to Clarendon than a rat to a cat. "A
Scotch surgeon may have more learning than an English one, and all
Scotland could not muster learning enough for Lowth's _Prelections_."'
See _ante_, ii. 363, and March 30, 1783.
[170] The poem is entitled _Gualterus Danistonus ad Amicos_. It
begins:--
'Dum studeo fungi fallentis munere vitae'