[819] See ante, p. 241.

[820] ’In old Aberdeen stands the King’s College, of which the first president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as one of the revivers of elegant learning.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 11.

[821] See ante, iii. 104.

[822] In his dining-room, no doubt, among ‘the very respectable people’ whose portraits hung there. Ante, p. 203, note.

[823] Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 466) wrote on March 30:—­’The nation is intoxicated, and has poured in Addresses of Thanks to the Crown for exerting the prerogative against the palladium of the people.’

[824] The election lasted from April 1 to May 16.  Fox was returned second on the poll. Ann.  Reg. xxvii. 190.

[825] He was returned also for Kirkwall, for which place he sat for nearly a year, while the scrutiny of the Westminster election was dragging on. Parl.  Hist. xxiv. 799.

[826] Hannah More wrote on March 8 (Memoirs, i. 310):—­’I am sure you will honour Mr. Langton, when I tell you he is come on purpose to stay with Dr. Johnson, and that during his illness.  He has taken a little lodging in Fleet-street in order to be near, to devote himself to him.  He has as much goodness as learning, and that is saying a bold thing of one of the first Greek scholars we have.’

[827] Floyer was the Lichfield physician on whose advice Johnson was ‘touched’ by Queen Anne. Ante, i. 42, 91, and post, July 20, 1784.

[828] To which Johnson returned this answer:—­

’TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE.

’Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord Portmore’s notice.  He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship directs, write to Mr. Langton.

’Bolt-court, Fleet-street,

April 13, 1784.’

BOSWELL.  Johnson here assumes his title of Doctor, which Boswell says (ante, ii. 332, note 1), so far as he knew, he never did.  Perhaps the letter has been wrongly copied, or perhaps Johnson thought that, in writing to a man of title, he ought to assume such title as he himself had.

[829] The eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of Homfrey (now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their arms which they have invariably used, have been, (as I have seen authenticated by the best authority,) one of those among the Knights and Esquires of honour who are represented by Holinshed as having issued from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled for the justes, accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every one a Knight, with a chain of gold, passing through the streets of London into Smithfield, on Sunday, at three o’clock in the afternoon, being the first Sunday after Michaelmas, in the fourteenth year of King Richard the Second.  This family once enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them in the progress of ages.  Their blood, however, remains to them well ascertained; and they may hope in the revolution of events, to recover that rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune seems to be an indispensable requisite.  BOSWELL.