[1026] Boswell wrote on March 18,1775:—­’Mr. Johnson, when enumerating our Club, observed of some of us, that they talked from books,—­Langton in particular.  “Garrick,” he said, “would talk from books, if he talked seriously.” “I,” said he, “do not talk from books; you do not talk from books.”  This was a compliment to my originality; but I am afraid I have not read books enough to be able to talk from them.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 181.  See ante, ii. 360, where Johnson said to Boswell:—­ ’I don’t believe you have borrowed from Waller.  I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more;’ and i. 105, where he described ’a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books.’

[1027] ’Lord Auchinleck has built a house of hewn stone, very stately and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands with great tenderness to his tenants.  I was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion, than with the sullen dignity of the old castle.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 159.  ’The house is scarcely yet finished, but very magnificent and very convenient.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 201.  See ante, i. 462.

[1028] See ante, ii. 413, and v. 91.

[1029] The relation, it should seem, was remote even for Scotland.  Their common ancestor was Robert Bruce, some sixteen generations back.  Boswell’s mother’s grandmother was a Bruce of the Earl of Kincardine’s family, and so also was his father’s mother.  Rogers’s Boswelliana, pp. 4, 5.

[1030] He refers to Johnson’s pension, which was given nearly two years after George Ill’s accession. Ante, i. 372.

[1031] Ante, p. 51.

[1032] He repeated this advice in 1777. Ante, iii. 207.

[1033] ’Of their black cattle some are without horns, called by the Scots humble cows, as we call a bee, an humble bee, that wants a sting.  Whether this difference be specifick, or accidental, though we inquired with great diligence, we could not be informed.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 78.

Johnson, in his Dictionary, gives the right derivation of humble-bee, from hum and bee.  The word Humble-cow is found in Guy Mannering, ed. 1860, iii. 91:—­’"Of a surety,” said Sampson, “I deemed I heard his horse’s feet.”  “That,” said John, with a broad grin, “was Grizzel chasing the humble-cow out of the close."’

[1034] ‘Even the cattle have not their usual beauty or noble head.’  Church and Brodribb’s Tacitus.

[1035] ’The peace you seek is here—­where is it not?  If your own mind be equal to its lot.’  CROKER.  Horace, I Epistles, xi. 29.

[1036] Horace, I Epistles, xviii. 112.

[1037] This and the next paragraph are not in the first edition.  The paragraph that follows has been altered so as to hide the fact that the minister spoken of was Mr. Dun.  Originally it stood:—­’Mr. Dun, though a man of sincere good principles as a presbyterian divine, discovered,’ &c.  First edition, p. 478.