"' _Works_,
vii. 234. Miller is mentioned in Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 352:--'There is
extreme taste in the park [Hagley]: the seats are not the best, but
there is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle built by Miller,
that would get him his freedom, even of Strawberry: it has the true rust
of the Barons' Wars.'
[244] See _ante_, p. 27.
[245] My note of this is much too short. _Brevis esse laboro, obscurus
fio_. ['I strive to be concise, I prove obscure.' FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars
Poet_. l. 25.] Yet as I have resolved that _the very Journal which Dr.
Johnson read_, shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the
text in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word
to complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation, in the
writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuine _Journal_.
One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect
passage above was probably as follows: 'In his book we have an accurate
display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant is
delineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest-sport, and the
modes of ancient theft are described.' BOSWELL. 'One of the best
criticks is, I believe, Malone, who had 'perused the original
manuscript.' See _ante_, p. 1; and _post_, Oct. 26, and under Nov. 11.
[246] It was in the Parliament-house that 'the ordinary Lords of
Session,' the Scotch Judges, that is to say, held their courts.
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