and that peculiar clique which circled round him; and hence his
prejudice in their favour, and the praise he reciprocates, are enormous.
"Lord Lyttelton," says a writer, "is his private friend, and him he
always calls the 'Great Historian,' though he is obliged to give his
lordship's name afterwards, to let his readers know of whom he is
speaking! From his letters it might appear that all the literary talent,
all the taste, and all the virtue of the country, were confined to his
circle of friends--Lord Lyttelton, Mrs Montague, Dr Porteous, and Major
Mercer."

In 1773, he again visited London, and the climax of his renown seemed to
be reached, when the University of Oxford gave him the degree of
LL.D.--when three different times he refused the offer by bishops and
archbishops of promotion in the English Church--and when (oh, brave!) he
was admitted to an interview with their Majesties, complimented on his
"Essay on Truth" by good old George III., who was much better qualified
to judge of an essay on turnips, and gifted with a pension of L200
a-year. About the same time he was urged to apply for the Professorship
of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, which he declined to do, apparently
from a terror at the thought of coming so near David Hume--a terror
which strikes us as exceedingly ludicrous, when we recollect that, most
pernicious as were Hume's principles, he was in private as harmless,
good-natured, and ('Scottice') 'sonsy' a being as lived.

A few months after the "Essay on Truth" appeared, and while the echoes
of its fame were beginning to spread through the world, there had
appeared a thin anonymous quarto, entitled the "First Book of the
Minstrel." It slid noiselessly as a star into the world's air. The
critics, finding no name on the title page, were peculiarly severe, and
peculiarly senseless, in their treatment of the unpretending volume,