Let me not be censured for mentioning
such minute particulars. Every thing relative to so great a man is worth
observing. I remember Dr. Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at
Glasgow[31], told us he was glad to know that Milton wore latchets in
his shoes, instead of buckles. When I mention the oak stick, it is but
letting _Hercules_ have his club; and, by-and-by, my readers will find
this stick will bud, and produce a good joke[32].
This imperfect sketch of 'the COMBINATION and the _form_[33]' of that
Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and after
whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased ALMIGHTY GOD to
call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the fancy of my
readers the capital object of the following journal, in the course of
which I trust they will attain to a considerable degree of
acquaintance with him.
His prejudice against Scotland[34] was announced almost as soon as he
began to appear in the world of Letters. In his _London_, a poem, are
the following nervous lines:--
'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land?
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?
There none are swept by sudden fate away;
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.'
The truth is, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself to
look upon all nations but his own as barbarians[35]: not only Hibernia,
and Scotland, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the same
poem.
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