the early part of this century was Dr.
Johnson's friend, Lord Stowell, the brother of Lord Eldon.

According to Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, Lord Stowell's decisions during
the war have since formed a code of international law, almost
universally recognised. In one year alone (1806) he pronounced 2,206
decrees. Lord Stowell (then Dr. Scott) was made Advocate-General in
Doctors' Commons in 1788, and Vicar-General or official principal for
the Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon after he became Master of the
Faculties, and in 1798 was nominated Judge of the High Court of
Admiralty, the highest dignity of the Doctors' Commons Courts. During
the great French war, it is said Dr. Scott sometimes received as much as
L1,000 a case for fees and perquisites in a prize cause. He left at his
death personal property exceeding L200,000. He used to say that he
admired above all other investments "the sweet simplicity of the Three
per Cents.," and when purchasing estate after estate, observed "he liked
plenty of elbow-room."

"It was," says Warton, "by visiting Sir Robert Chambers, when a fellow
of University, that Johnson became acquainted with Lord Stowell; and
when Chambers went to India, Lord Stowell, as he expressed it to me,
seemed to succeed to his place in Johnson's friendship."

"Sir William Scott (Lord Stowell)," says Boswell, "told me that when he
complained of a headache in the post-chaise, as they were travelling
together to Scotland, Johnson treated him in a rough manner--'At your
age, sir, I had no headache.'

"Mr. Scott's amiable manners and attachment to our Socrates," says
Boswell in Edinburgh, "at once united me to him. He told me that before
I came in the doctor had unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish
cleanliness. He then drank no fermented liquor. He asked to have his
lemonade made sweeter; upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers,
lifted a lump of sugar and put it into it. The doctor, in indignation,
threw it out. Scott said he was afraid he would have knocked the waiter
down."

Again Boswell says:--"We dined together with Mr. Scott, now Sir William
Scott, his Majesty's Advocate-General, at his chambers in the
Temple--nobody else there. The company being so small, Johnson was not
in such high spirits as he had been the preceding day, and for a
considerable time little was said. At last he burst forth--'Subordination
is sadly broken down in this age. No man, now, has the same authority
which his father had