many points endeavoured to restrain it.' _Ib_. p. 292.

[917] Begging pardon of the Doctor and his conductor, I have often seen
and partaken of cold sheep's head at as good breakfast-tables as ever
they sat at. This protest is something in the manner of the late
Culrossie, who fought a duel for the honour of Aberdeen butter. I have
passed over all the Doctor's other reproaches upon Scotland, but the
sheep's head I will defend _totis viribus_. Dr. Johnson himself must
have forgiven my zeal on this occasion; for if, as he says, _dinner_ be
the thing of which a man thinks _oftenest during the day, breakfast_
must be that of which he thinks _first in the morning_. WALTER SCOTT. I
do not know where Johnson says this. Perhaps Scott was thinking of a
passage in Mrs. Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 149, where she writes that he said:
'A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of any thing than he does of
his dinner.'

[918] A horrible place it was. Johnson describes it (_Works_, ix. 152)
as 'a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and arched on the
top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a ladder or
a rope.'

[919] See _ante_, p. 177.

[920] Sir Allan M'Lean, like many Highland chiefs, was embarrassed in
his private affairs, and exposed to unpleasant solicitations from
attorneys, called, in Scotland, _writers_ (which indeed was the chief
motive of his retiring to Inchkenneth). Upon one occasion he made a
visit to a friend, then residing at Carron lodge, on the banks of the
Carron, where the banks of that river are studded with pretty villas:
Sir Allan, admiring the landscape, asked his friend, whom that handsome
seat belonged to. 'M---, the writer to the signet,' was the reply.
'Umph!' said Sir Allan, but not with an accent of assent, 'I mean that
other house.' 'Oh ! that belongs to a very honest fellow Jamie---, also
a writer to the signet.' 'Umph!' said the Highland chief of M'Lean with
more emphasis than before, 'And yon smaller house?' 'That belongs to a
Stirling man; I forget his name, but I am sure he is a writer too;
for---.' Sir Allan who had recoiled a quarter of a circle backward at
every response, now wheeled the circle entire and turned his back on the
landscape, saying, 'My good friend, I must own you have a pretty
situation here; but d--n your neighbourhood.' WALTER SCOTT.

[921] Loch Awe.

[922] 'Pope's talent lay remarkably in what one may naturally enough
term the condensation of thoughts.