, 'often used
in the trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change
their names; as Simpson _alias_ Smith, _alias_ Baker, &c.' For Mallet,
see _ante_, i. 268, and ii. 159.

[668] Perhaps Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made
Earl Douglas exclaim:--

'At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the King praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.'
_Marmion_, canto vi. 15.

[669] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10.

[670] Johnson often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he
wrote:--'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the
present. To read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor
often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women
had not then aspired to literature nor was every house supplied with a
closet of knowledge.' _Works_, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that
general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.'
_Works_, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now circulates in common
talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing
learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any
acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.' _Ib_.
p.470. 'Of the _Essay on Criticism_, Pope declared that he did not
expect the sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even
of liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the
education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they
are of this.' _Ib_. viii. 243. See _ante_, iii. 3, 254. Yet he
maintained that 'learning has decreased in England, because learning
will not do so much for a man as formerly.' Boswell's _Hebrides,
post_, v. 80.

[671] Malone describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:--'I
found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few apples
were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had got. He said the
_History of Birmingham_. Local histories, I observed, were generally
dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a peculiar merit with me; for I
passed some of my early years, and married my wife there." [See _ante_,
i. 96.] I supposed the apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir;
I believe they are only there because I want something to do. These are
some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I
have been confined this week pas