_Ante_, i. 168.
[402] Act iii. sc. 2.
[403] Boswell's suggestion is explained by the following passage in
Johnson's _Works_, viii. 463:--'Mallet was by his original one of the
Macgregors, a clan that became about sixty years ago, under the conduct
of Robin Roy, so formidable and so infamous for violence and robbery,
that the name was annulled by a legal abolition.'
[404] See _ante_, iii. 410, where he said to an Irish gentleman:--'Do
not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob
you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which
we could have robbed them.'
[405] It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson read this gentle remonstrance,
and took no notice of it to me. BOSWELL. See _post_, Oct. 12, note.
[406] _St. Matthew_, v. 44.
[407] It is odd that Boswell did not suspect the parson, who, no doubt,
had learnt the evening before from Mr. Keith that the two travellers
would be present at his sermon. Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 283)
says that one day at Sir Joshua's dinner-table, when his host praised
Malone very highly for his laborious edition of _Shakespeare_, he
(Northcote) 'rather hastily replied, "What a very despicable creature
must that man be who thus devotes himself, and makes another man his
god;" when Boswell, who sat at my elbow, and was not in my thoughts at
the time, cried out "Oh! Sir Joshua, then that is me!"'
[408] Johnson (_Works_, ix.
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