Croker's Boswell, p. 286.
[213] 'I should scarcely have regretted my journey, had it afforded nothing more than the sight of Aberbrothick.' Works, ix. 9.
[214] Johnson referred, I believe, to the last of Tillotson's Sermons preached upon Several Occasions, ed. 1673, p. 316, where the preacher says:--'Supposing the Scripture to be a Divine Revelation, and that these words (This is My Body), if they be in Scripture, must necessarily be taken in the strict and literal sense, I ask now, What greater evidence any man has that these words (This is My Body) are in the Bible than every man has that the bread is not changed in the sacrament? 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 not changed we have the concurring testimony of several of our senses.'
[215] This also is Tillotson's argument. 'There is no more certain foundation for it [transubstantiation] in Scripture than for our Saviour's being substantially changed into all those things which are said of him, as that he is a rock, a vine, a door, and a hundred other things.' Ib. p. 313.
[216] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. See St. John's Gospel, chap. vi. 53, and following verses. 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 they expected, continues:--'But Mr. Boswell desired me to observe that the innkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as well as I could.' Works, ix. 9.
[220] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 29, 1775 (Piozzi Letters, i. 292):--' I hope I shall quickly come to Streatham...and catch a little gaiety among you.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:--'That he never caught. He thought and mused at Streatham as he did habitually everywhere, and seldom or never minded what was doing about him.' On the margin of i. 315 Baretti has written:--'Johnson mused as much on the road to Paris as he did in his garret in London as much at a French opera as in 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 from Tom Jones, bk. xi. ch. ii. 'The other who, like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to, readily answered, '&c. BOSWELL.
[223] Perhaps he gave the 'shilling extraordinary' because he 'found a church,' as he says, 'clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland.' Works, ix. 9.
[224] See ante, iii. 22.
[225] See ante, May 9, 1784. Yet Johnson says (Works, ix. 10):--'The magnetism of Lord Monboddo's conversation easily drew us out of our way.'
[226] There were several points of similarity between them; learning, clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of research on many subjects which people in general do not investigate. Foote paid Lord Monboddo the compliment of saying, that he was an Elzevir edition of 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 the first edition.
[227] Lord Elibank (post, Sept. 12) said that he would go five hundred miles 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 had proceeded thus far I had opportunities of observing, what I had never heard, that there were many beggars in Scotland. In Edinburgh the the proportion is, I think, not less than in London, and in the smaller places it is far greater than in English towns of the same extent. It must, 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, parish of Logie Pert, Forfar. The bridge was 'on the great central line of communication from the north of Scotland. The hamlet is right and left of the high road.' Bain's Life of James Mill, p. 1. Boswell and Johnson, on their road to Laurence Kirk, must have passed close to the cottage 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 of Edinburgh, 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, Lord Gardenston declared that he still intended to erect a proper monument in his 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 in terms 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 have entertained angels unawares.' Hebrews xiii, 2.