'Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks.
New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over,
No countryman living their tricks to discover.'
Dr. Douglas was afterwards Bishop of Salisbury (ante, p. 127). See post, June 25, 1763, for the part he took in exposing the Cock Lane Ghost imposture.
[678] Scott writing to Southey in 1810 said:—'A witty rogue the other day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of.' The passage alleged to be stolen ends with,—
'When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!'
which in Vida ad Eranen. El. ii. v. 21, ran,—
'Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.'
'It is almost needless to add,' says Mr. Lockhart, 'there are no such lines.' Life of Scott, iii. 294.
[679] The greater part of this Preface was given in the Gent. Mag. for August 1747 (xvii. 404).
[680] 'Persuasive' is scarcely a fit description for this noble outburst of indignation on the part of one who knew all the miseries of poverty. After quoting Dr. Newton's account of the distress to which Milton's grand-daughter had been reduced, he says:—'That this relation is true cannot be questioned: but surely the honour of letters, the dignity of sacred poetry, the spirit of the English nation, and the glory of human nature require—that it should be true no longer…. In an age, which amidst all its vices and all its follies has not become infamous for want of charity, it may be surely allowed to hope, that the living remains of Milton will be no longer suffered to languish in distress.' Johnson's Works, v. 270.
[681] Hawkins's Johnson, p. 275.