468 Addenda.
Curiosities, &c., a copy of which has been lent me by my friend, Mr. T. Fisher Unwin. Among the three thousand ounces of silver sold was a ' truly magnificent service of One pattern.' consisting of thirty- four dishes and sixty-six plates. The sale was held at Manchester, in September, 1823, and lasted six days. Among the lots were the following Johnsonian relics :
1 Lot 430. Auctores Classici Sallustius, Horatius et Terentius. 3 torn. 8vo. Dub. 1747. On the first leaf is written : "Given by Dr. John son to H. L. Thrale, 1770."
'645. A few interesting Original letters (some in French) [Letters, i. 150, 324] in the handwriting of Dr. Johnson.
1 649. "Johnson's Padlock, committed to my care in the year 1768."
- 650. The Grant of the Freedom of Aberdeen to Samuel Johnson, LL.D., on
parchment, with a red ribbon and wax seal [Life, v. 90 ; Letters, i. 233].
'716. A Small Red Morocco Pocket-Book, with a medical receipt in Dr. Johnson's own handwriting, with massive metal gilt ornaments round the sides, and lock and key, ivory leaves inside, and denomi nated in Mrs. P.'s own writing, "THE POCKET BOOK OF DOCTOR JOHNSON.'"
On the fly-leaf of this catalogue a former owner, James Taylor, ' an antiquarian bookseller,' has recorded that at the sale of ' Mr. Webster's Library at Mr. Evans's,' in April, 1826, 3 155-. was given for a copy of
- Bos well's Life of Johnson, 4 vols., 1816, in the most beautiful condition,
\ bound russia, top edges gilt and front edges uncut, with numerous manuscript notes written in the margin by Mrs. Piozzi.'
(Vol. ii. 51.)
Johnson's doubt whether a tree could be found in Scotland for him to be hanged on finds some justification in the following passage in J. H. Burton's History of Scotland, ed. 1867, iv. 198, to which my attention has been drawn by Mr. Leask. The historian, describing a raid to the Borders by the Earl of Murray, Queen Mary's brother, to put down the disturbances there, says that fifty-three outlaws were taken, of whom eighteen were drowned 'for lack of trees and halters.'
(Vol. ii. 79.)
I have lately seen in a second-hand bookseller's catalogue the following extract from a letter by Johnson dated April 30, 1774, ad dressed to 'The Rev. Dr. Home, of Magdalen College, Oxford': 'The Life of Walton has happily fallen into good hands. Sir John Hawkins has prefixed it to the late edition of the Angler, very diligently collected and very elegantly composed.' Home in this same year, Bos well writes, s had talked of publishing an edition of Walton's Lives, but had laid aside that design upon Dr. Johnson's telling him, from mistake, that Lord Hailes intended to do it.' Life, ii. 279, 283, 445.
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