[962] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 237) says that 'the fore-top of all his wigs were (sic) burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with which he met him at the parlour door when the bell had called him down to dinner.' Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 357) says that he wore 'a brown coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a flowing bob-wig; they were in perfectly good trim, and with the ladies he had nothing of the slovenly philosopher about him.'
[963] See ante, ii. 432.
[964] Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally entertained: for the fact is, that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works. BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 310, note 2.
[965] 'In the neighbourhood of Lichfield [in 1750] the principal gentlemen clothed their hounds in tartan plaid, with which they hunted a fox, dressed in a red uniform.' Mahon's Hist. of England, iv. 10.
[966] So Boswell in his Hebrides (Nov. 8), hoping that his father and Johnson have met in heaven, observes, 'that they have met in a place where there is no room for Whiggism.' See ante, i. 431.
[967] Paradise Lost, bk. i. 263. Butler (Miscellaneous Thoughts, 1. 169) had said:—
'The Devil was the first o' th' name
From whom the race of rebels came.'
[968] In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have said, 'Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of that ilk.' Johnson knew that sense of the word very well, and has thus explained it in his Dictionary, voce ILK:—'It also signifies "the same;" as, Mackintosh of that ilk, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate are the same.' BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 427, note 2.
[969] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 19 of the next year:—'There are those still who either fright themselves, or would fright others, with an invasion…. Such a fleet Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 461.
[970] See ante, iii. 42.