ten 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'

Which Prior imitates:--

'Studious the busy moments to deceive.'

Sir Walter Scott thought that the poem praised by Johnson was 'more
likely the fine epitaph on John, Viscount of Dundee, translated by
Dryden, and beginning _Ultime Scotoruml_' Archibald Pitcairne, M.D., was
born in 1652, and died in 1713.

[171] My Journal, from this day inclusive, was read by Dr. Johnson.
BOSWELL. It was read by Johnson up to the second paragraph of Oct. 26.
Boswell, it should seem, once at least shewed Johnson a part of the
Journal from which he formed his _Life_. See _ante_, iii. 260, where he
says:--'It delighted him on a review to find that his conversation
teemed with point and imagery.'

[172] See _ante_, ii. 20, note 4.

[173] Goldsmith, in his _Present State of Polite Learning_, published in
1759, says, (ch. x):--'When the great Somers was at the helm, patronage
was fashionable among our nobility ... Since the days of a certain prime
minister of inglorious memory [Sir Robert Walpole] the learned have been
kept pretty much at a distance. ... The au