26 FAMOUS SCOTS 



tion introduced by the Reformers, and so distinct had 

 been the little note of pedantry, perhaps in this way 

 fostered, that Smollett makes the barber in Roderick 

 Random quote Horace in the original, and Foote in a 

 farce has made a valet insist on its possession as a 

 shibboleth of nationality. We need but mention the 

 favourite quotations in the ancient tongue by the Baron 

 of Bradwardine and Dugald Dalgetty as a reminiscence 

 of his own old days 'at the Marischal College' ; while 

 Miller also could remember an old cabinet-maker who 

 carried for the sake of the big print a Latin New 

 Testament to church. But no more with him than 

 with Darwin could the linguistic faculty be stimulated. 

 The Rudiments he thought the dullest book he had 

 ever seen, and though in after-life he regretted the lost 

 opportunity that at five-and-twenty might have made 

 him a scholar and thus have saved ten of the best 

 working years of his life, it may be doubted if in his 

 case the loss amounted to more than in the case of 

 Macaulay, who affected to bewail his loss of mathe- 

 matics. In their truest form, scholars, like naturalists, 

 are born and not made, nor will any labour in the 

 linguistic field yield much to the scientist. The poet 

 Gray wisely lamented the loss of time in his own case 

 through forced labour at mathematics, a remark not 

 even yet fully appreciated in Scotland, where the 

 system of general excellence that system under which 

 Johnson so happily remarked that, while each man got 

 a bite, no one got a bellyful has too long stunted the 



