r (though then young), had the honour of sitting at his board.'

[240] Lord Cockburn, writing of the title that Jeffrey took when he was
raised to the Bench in 1834, said:--'The Scotch Judges are styled
_Lords_; a title to which long usage has associated feelings of
reverence in the minds of the people, who could not now be soon made to
respect or understand _Mr. Justice_. During its strongly feudalised
condition, the landholders of Scotland, who were almost the sole judges,
were really known only by the names of their estates. It was an insult,
and in some parts of the country it is so still, to call a laird by his
personal, instead of his territorial, title. But this assumption of two
names, one official and one personal, and being addressed by the one and
subscribing by the other, is wearing out, and will soon disappear
entirely.' Cockburn's _Jeffrey_, i. 365. See _post_, p. 111, note 1.

[241] _Georgics_, i. 1.

[242] Walter Scott used to tell an instance of Lord Monboddo's
agricultural enthusiasm, that returning home one night after an absence
(I think) on circuit, he went out with a candle to look at a field of
turnips, then a novelty in Scotland. CROKER.

[243] Johnson says the same in his _Life of John Philips_, and adds:--
'This I was told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whose
experience was, that "there were many books written on the same subject
in prose, which do not contain so much truth as that poem."' _Works_,
vii. 234. Miller is mentioned in Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 352:--'There is
extreme taste in the park [Hagley]: the seats are not the best, but
there is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle built by Miller,
that would get him his freedom, even of Strawberry: it has the true rust
of the Barons' Wars.'

[244] See _ante_, p. 27.

[245] My note of this is much too short. _Brevis esse laboro, obscurus
fio_. ['I strive to be concise, I prove obscure.' FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars
Poet_. l. 25.] Yet as I have resolved that _the very Journal which Dr.
Johnson read_, shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the
text in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word
to complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation, in the
writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuine _Journal_.
One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect
passage above was probably as follows: 'In his book we have an accurate
display of a nation in