, 'I can assure you that in Scotland we give
oats to our horses as well as you do to yours in England.' He
replied:--'I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as
well as you treat yourselves.'

[523] Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote:--'The prejudices he had to countries
did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he indulged
himself was against Scotland, though he had the most cordial friendship
with individuals. This he used to vindicate as a duty. ... Against the
Irish he entertained no prejudice; he thought they united themselves
very well with us; but the Scotch, when in England, united and made a
party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it
right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.' Taylor's
_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's _Hebrides,
post_, v. 20.

[524] _Ante_, ii. 300.

[525] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly
spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous family
in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every
Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came
back to us on the Monday night.'

[526] Lord North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was
followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, which
in its turn was at this very time giving way to the Coalition Ministry,
to be followed very soon by the Pitt Ministry.

[527] I have, in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ [p. 200, Sept.
13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was
_necessary_, but not a subject for _glory_; because it for a long time
blasted the generous feelings of _Loyalty_. And now, when by the
benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our
_affections_, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a
shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had
not required. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4.

[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. _Ante_, i. 309.

[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's
daughters:--'Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough;
when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ... A thousand stories
which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist
takes them in his gripe.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 296. See _post_,
April 18, 1783.

[530] See _ante_,