[205] Horace, Odes, ii. 14. 1.

[206] John Abernethy, a Presbyterian divine.  His works in 7 vols. 8vo. were published in 1740-51.

[207] Leechman was principal of Glasgow University (post, Oct. 29).  On his appointment to the Chair of Theology he had been prosecuted for heresy for having, in his Sermon on Prayer, omitted to state the obligation to pray in the name of Christ.  Dr. A. Carlyle’s Auto. p. 69.  One of his sermons was placed in Hume’s hands, apparently that the author might have his suggestions in preparing a second edition.  Hume says:—­’First the addressing of our virtuous withes and desires to the Deity, since the address has no influence on him, is only a kind of rhetorical figure, in order to render these wishes more ardent and passionate.  This is Mr. Leechman’s doctrine.  Now the use of any figure of speech can never be a duty.  Secondly, this figure, like most figures of rhetoric, has an evident impropriety in it, for we can make use of no expression, or even thought, in prayers and entreaties, which does not imply that these prayers have an influence.  Thirdly, this figure is very dangerous, and leads directly, and even unavoidably, to impiety and blasphemy,’ etc.  J.H.  Burton’s Hume, i. 161.

[208] Nichols (Lit.  Anec. ii. 555) records:—­’During the whole of my intimacy with Dr. Johnson he rarely permitted me to depart without some sententious advice....  His words at parting were, “Take care of your eternal salvation.  Remember to observe the Sabbath.  Let it never be a day of business, nor wholly a day of dissipation.”  He concluded his solemn farewell with, “Let my words have their due weight.  They are the words of a dying man.”  I never saw him more.’

[209] See ante, ii. 72.

[210] ’From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never seen a single tree which I did not believe to have grown up far within the present century....  The variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown....  A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice.  At St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice:  I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so.  “This,” said he, “is nothing to another a few miles off.”  I was still less delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer.  “Nay,” said a gentleman that stood by, “I know but of this and that tree in the county."’ Johnson’s Works, ix. 7 ’In all this journey [so far as Slains Castle] I have not travelled an hundred yards between hedges, or seen five trees fit for the carpenter.’ Piozzi Letters, i.120.  See ante, ii. 301.

[211] One of the Boswells of this branch was, in 1798, raised to the bench under the title of Lord Balmuto.  It was his sister who was Boswell’s step-mother.  Rogers’s Boswelliana, pp. 4, 82.

[212] ’The colony of Leuchars is a vain imagination concerning a certain fleet of Danes wrecked on Sheughy Dikes.’  WALTER SCOTT.  ’The fishing people on that coast have, however, all the appearance of being a different race from the inland population, and their dialect has many peculiarities.’  LOCKHART.  Croker’s Boswell, p. 286.