His head, and sometimes also his body shook with a kind of
motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently
disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions[29], of the nature of
that distemper called _St. Vitus's dance_. He wore a full suit of plain
brown clothes, with twisted hair-buttons[30] of the same colour, a
large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings, and
silver buckles. Upon this tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a
very wide brown cloth great coat, with pockets which might have almost
held the two volumes of his folio _Dictionary_; and he carried in his
hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for mentioning
such minute particulars. Every thing relative to so great a man is worth
observing. I remember Dr. Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at
Glasgow[31], told us he was glad to know that Milton wore latchets in
his shoes, instead of buckles. When I mention the oak stick, it is but
letting _Hercules_ have his club; and, by-and-by, my readers will find
this stick will bud, and produce a good joke[32].

This imperfect sketch of 'the COMBINATION and the _form_[33]' of that
Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and after
whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased ALMIGHTY GOD to
call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the fancy of my
readers the capital object of the following journal, in the course of
which I trust they will attain to a considerable degree of
acquaintance with him.

His prejudice against Scotland[34] was announced almost as soon as he
began to appear in the world of Letters. In his _London_, a poem, are
the following nervous lines:--

'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land?
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?
There none are swept by sudden fate away;
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.'

The truth is, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself to
look upon all nations but his own as barbarians[35]: not only Hibernia,
and Scotland, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the same
poem. If he was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was
because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in
England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and
because he could not but see in them that nationality which I believe no
liberal-minded Scotsman will deny. He was indeed, if I may be a