Step. Parr, Vic."
J. Mn.
Dr. Johnson.—The parchment containing the grant of the freedom of the city of Aberdeen to the "Literary Colossus," in 1773, once the property of
Mrs. Piozzi, was sold in Manchester in August, 1823, to an eminent bookseller in Bond Street.
Kirkwallensis.
Borrowed Thoughts.—We often hear the man who, from his more advanced position, looks with contempt on the wisdom of past ages, likened to the child mounted on his father's shoulder, and boasting that he is the taller of the two.
This no new idea. It is probably derived immediately from Mr. Macaulay, who in his Essay on Sir James Mackintosh says:
"The men to whom we owe it that we have a House of Commons are sneered at because they did not suffer the debates of the House to be published. The authors of the Toleration Act are treated as bigots, because they did not go the whole length of Catholic Emancipation. Just so we have heard a baby, mounted on the shoulders of its father, cry out, 'How much taller I am than Papa!'"
But it may be traced farther; for hear what Butler says (Hudibras, ii. 71.):
"For as our modern wits behold,