Note 4 — THE LATE SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

Footnote 4

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Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines EXCISE "a hateful tax, levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid;" and, in the Idler (No. 65) he calls a commissioner of excise "one of the lowest of all human beings." This violence of language seems so little reasonable, that the editor was induced to suspect some cause of personal animosity; this mention of the trade in parchment (an excisable article) afforded a clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield:—"July 27, 1725—The commissioners received yours of the 22nd instant; and since the justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the tanner, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against him, the board direct that the next time he offends, you do not lay an information against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that he may be prosecuted in the Exchequer." It does not appear whether he offended again, but here is sufficient cause of his son's animosity against commissioners of excise, and of the allusion in the Dictionary to the special jurisdiction under which that revenue is administered. The reluctance of the justices to convict will not appear unnatural, when it is recollected that Mr. Johnson was, this very year, chief magistrate of the city.—Note to Boswell, by Croker, vol. i.