Note 14 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

Scrupulosity was a word that Boswell had caught up from Johnson. Sir W. Jones (Life, i. 177) wrote in 1776:—'You will be able to examine with the minutest scrupulosity, as Johnson would call it.' Johnson describes Addison's prose as 'pure without scrupulosity.' Works, vii. 472. 'Swift,' he says, 'washed himself with oriental scrupulosity.' Ib. viii. 222. Boswell (Hebrides, Aug. 15) writes of 'scrupulosity of conscience.'