Having impartially censured Mr. Pennant, as a Traveller in Scotland, let
me allow him, from authorities much better than mine, his deserved
praise as an able Zoologist; and let me also from my own understanding
and feelings, acknowledge the merit of his _London_, which, though said
to be not quite accurate in some particulars, is one of the most
pleasing topographical performances that ever appeared in any language.
Mr. Pennant, like his countrymen in general[801], has the true spirit of a
_Gentleman_. As a proof of it, I shall quote from his _London_ the
passage, in which he speaks of my illustrious friend. 'I must by no
means omit _Bolt-court_, the long residence of Doctor SAMUEL JOHNSON, a
man of the strongest natural abilities, great learning, a most retentive
memory, of the deepest and most unaffected piety and morality, mingled
with those numerous weaknesses and prejudices which his friends have
kindly taken care to draw from their dread abode[802]. I brought on myself
his transient anger, by observing that in his tour in _Scotland_, he
once had "long and woeful experience of oats being the food of men in
_Scotland_ as they were of horses in _England_.
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