[500] In The Adventurer, No. 120, Johnson, after describing 'a gay assembly,' continues:—'The world in its best state is nothing more than a larger assembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they do not feel.' Works, iv. 120.
[501] 'Sir Adam Fergusson, who by a strange coincidence of chances got in to be member of Parliament for Ayrshire in 1774, was the great-grandson of a messenger. I was talking with great indignation that the whole (? old) families of the county should be defeated by an upstart.' Boswelliana, p. 283.
[502] See ante, ii. 60.
[503] See ante, i. 424. Hume wrote of the judgment of Charles I. (Hist. of Eng. vii. 148):—'If ever, on any occasion, it were laudable to conceal truth from the populace, it must be confessed that the doctrine of resistance affords such an example; and that all speculative reasoners ought to observe with regard to this principle the same cautious silence which the laws in every species of government have ever prescribed to themselves.'
[504] 'All foreigners remark that the knowledge of the common people of England is greater than that of any other vulgar. This superiority we undoubtedly owe to the rivulets of intelligence [i. e. the newspapers] which are continually trickling among us, which every one may catch, and of which every one partakes.' Idler, No. 7. In a later number (30), he speaks very contemptuously of news-writers. 'In Sir Henry Wotton's jocular definition, _an ambassador is said to be a man of virtue sent abroad to tell lies for the advantage of his country. A newswriter is a man without virtue, who writes lies at home for his own profit.'
[505] See post, April 3, 1773.
[506] Probably Mr. Elphinston. See ante, i. 210, post, April 19, 1773, and April i, 1779. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 493) wrote of a friend:—'He had overcome many disadvantages of his education, for he had been sent to a Jacobite seminary of one Elphinstone at Kensington, where his body was starved and his mind also. He returned to Edinburgh to college. He had hardly a word of Latin, and was obliged to work hard with a private tutor.'
[507] 'In progress of time Abel Sampson, probationer of divinity, was admitted to the privileges of a preacher.' Guy Mannering, chap. ii.
[508] In his Dictionary he defines heinous as atrocious; wicked in a high degree.
[509] Ephesians, v. 5.