[282] Dr. Beattie was so kindly entertained in England, that he had not yet returned home.  BOSWELL.  Beattie was staying in London till his pension got settled.  Early in July he had been told that he was to have a pension of L200 a year (ante, ii. 264, note 2).  It was not till Aug. 20 that it was conferred.  On July 9, he, in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, received the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford.  On Aug. 24, he had a long interview with the King; ‘who asked,’ Beattie records, ’whether we had any good preachers at Aberdeen.  I said “Yes,” and named Campbell and Gerard, with whose names, however, I did not find that he was acquainted.’  It was this same summer that Reynolds painted him in ’the allegorical picture representing the triumph of truth over scepticism and infidelity’ (post, Oct. 1, note).  Forbes’s Beattie, ed. 1824, pp. 151-6, 167.

[283] Dr. Johnson’s burgess-ticket was in these words:—­’Aberdoniae, vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum, Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, praepositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi Young, Georgii Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie Decani guildae, et Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi.  ’Quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL.D. receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildae:  praefati burgi de Aberdeen.  In deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximiae observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti Magistratus eum amplectuntur.  Extractum per me, ALEX.  CARNEGIE.’  BOSWELL.  ’I was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin.  Let me pay Scotland one just praise; there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 117.  Baretti, in a MS. note on this passage, says:—­’Throughout England nothing is done for nothing.  Stop a moment to look at the rusticks mowing a field, and they will presently quit their work to come to you, and ask something to drink.’  Aberdeen conferred its freedom so liberally about this time that it is surprising that Boswell was passed over.  George Colman the younger, when a youth of eighteen, was sent to King’s College.  He says in his worthless Random Records, ii. 99:—­’I had scarcely been a week in Old Aberdeen, when the Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him one evening in the Town Hall; there I found a numerous company assembled.  The object of this meeting was soon declared to me by the Lord Provost, who drank my health, and presented me with the freedom of the City.’  Two of his English fellow-students, of a little older standing, had, he said, received the same honour.  His statement seemed to me incredible; but by the politeness of the Town-clerk, W. Gordon, Esq., I have found out that in the main it is correct.  Colman, with one of the two, was admitted as an Honorary Burgess on Oct. 8, 1781, being described as vir generosus; the other had been admitted earlier.  The population of Aberdeen and its suburbs in 1769 was, according to Pennant, 16,000.  Pennant’s Tour, p. 117.