[300] See ante, iii. 269.

[301] The original ‘Robinhood’ was a debating society which met near Temple-Bar.  Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it, and, it was said, Burke.  Forster’s Goldsmith, i. 287, and Prior’s Burke, p. 79.  The president was a baker by trade.  ’Goldsmith, after hearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning, exclaimed to Derrick, “That man was meant by nature for a Lord Chancellor.”  Derrick replied, “No, no, not so high; he is only intended for Master of the Rolls."’ Prior’s Goldsmith, i. 420.  Fielding, in 1752, in The Covent-Garden Journal, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this Society and the baker.  A fragment of a report of their discussions which he pretends to have discovered, begins thus:—­’This evenin the questin at the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty; baken bifor mee To’mmas Whytebred, baker.’  Horace Walpole (Letters, iv. 288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to England, ’He has seen ...  Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.’  Romilly (Life, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the past winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies had been established.  ‘The auditors,’ he was assured, ’were mostly weak, well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;’ but among the speakers were ’some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with more wit than understanding.’  ‘Nothing,’ he continues, ’could raise up panegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attempt to suppress them.  The Solicitor-General has brought a bill into Parliament for this purpose.  The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as these societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House], involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, A Bill to regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord’s Day.’  The Bill was carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the two tellers.  The penalties for holding a meeting were L200 for the master of the house, L100 for the moderator of the meeting, and L50 for each of the servants at the door. Parl.  Hist. xxii. 262, 279.

[302] St. Matthew, xxvii. 52.

[303] I Corinthians, xv. 37.

[304] As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such discussions, as frequently to introduce them.  But the truth is, that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious; and therefore took every opportunity of leading Johnson to converse on such subjects.  MALONE.  See ante, i. 406.

[305] Macbean (Johnson’s old amanuensis, ante, i. 187) is not in Boswell’s list of guests; but in the Pemb.  Coll.  MSS., there is the following entry on Monday, April 16:—­’Yesterday at dinner were Mrs. Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen.  Time passed in talk after dinner.  At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back to tea.’