I have
passed over all the Doctor's other reproaches upon Scotland, but the
sheep's head I will defend _totis viribus_. Dr. Johnson himself must
have forgiven my zeal on this occasion; for if, as he says, _dinner_ be
the thing of which a man thinks _oftenest during the day, breakfast_
must be that of which he thinks _first in the morning_. WALTER SCOTT. I
do not know where Johnson says this. Perhaps Scott was thinking of a
passage in Mrs. Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 149, where she writes that he said:
'A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of any thing than he does of
his dinner.'
[918] A horrible place it was. Johnson describes it (_Works_, ix. 152)
as 'a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and arched on the
top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a ladder or
a rope.'
[919] See _ante_, p. 177.
[920] Sir Allan M'Lean, like many Highland chiefs, was embarrassed in
his private affairs, and exposed to unpleasant solicitations from
attorneys, called, in Scotland, _writers_ (which indeed was the chief
motive of his retiring to Inchkenneth). Upon one occasion he made a
visit to a friend, then residing at Carron lodge, on the banks of the
Carron, where the banks of that river are studded with pretty villas:
Sir Allan, admiring the landscape, asked his friend, whom that handsome
seat belonged to.
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