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The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

by James Boswell · English · Gutenberg #6018 · 708,331 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Author: James Boswell


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6018]
                Most recently updated: October 9, 2014

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES WITH SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. ***




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Distributed Proofreading Team.











THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES

WITH SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

by

James Boswell



DEDICATION TO EDMOND MALONE, ESQ.

My Dear Sir,

In every narrative, whether historical or biographical, authenticity
is of the utmost consequence. Of this I have ever been so firmly
persuaded, that I inscribed a former work to that person who was the
best judge of its truth. I need not tell you I mean General Paoli;
who, after his great, though unsuccessful, efforts to preserve the
liberties of his country, has found an honourable asylum in Britain,
where he has now lived many years the object of Royal regard and
private respect; and whom I cannot name without expressing my very
grateful sense of the uniform kindness which he has been pleased to
shew me.

The friends of Doctor Johnson can best judge, from internal evidence,
whether the numerous conversations which form the most valuable part
of the ensuing pages, are correctly related. To them, therefore I wish
to appeal, for the accuracy of the portrait here exhibited to the
world.

As one of those who were intimately acquainted with him, you have a
tide to this address. You have obligingly taken the trouble to peruse
the original manuscript of this tour, and can vouch for the strict
fidelity of the present publication. Your literary alliance with our
much lamented friend, in consequence of having undertaken to render
one of his labours more complete, by your edition of Shakespeare, a
work which I am confident will not disappoint the expectations of the
publick, gives you another claim. But I have a still more powerful
inducement to prefix your name to this volume, as it gives me an
opportunity of letting the world know that I enjoy the honour and
happiness of your friendship; and of thus publickly testifying the
sincere regard with which I am.

My dear Sir,

Your very faithful and obedient servant,
James Boswell.
London, 20 September 1785.



"He was of an admirable pregnancy of wit, and that pregnancy much
improved by continual study from his childhood; by which he had gotten
such a promptness in expressing his mind, that his extemporal speeches
were little inferior to his premeditated writings. Many, no doubt, had
read as much and perhaps more than he; but scarce ever any concocted
his reading into judgement as he did."--Baker's Chronicle



Dr Johnson had for many years given me hopes that we should go
together, and visit the Hebrides. Martin's Account of those islands
had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a
system of life almost totally different from what we had been
accustomed to see; and, to find simplicity and wildness, and all the
circumstances of remote time or place, so near to our native great
island, was an object within the reach of reasonable curiosity. Dr
Johnson has said in his Journey, 'that he scarcely remembered how the
wish to visit the Hebrides was excited'; but he told me, in summer,
1763, that his father put Martin's Account into his hands when he was
very young, and that he was much pleased with it. We reckoned there
would be some inconveniencies and hardships, and perhaps a little
danger; but these we were persuaded were magnified in the imagination
of every body. When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design
to Voltaire. He looked at me, as if I had talked of going to the North
Pole, and said, 'You do not insist on my accompanying you?' 'No, sir.'
'Then I am very willing you should go.' I was not afraid that our
curious expedition would be prevented by such apprehensions; but I
doubted that it would not be possible to prevail on Dr Johnson to
relinquish, for some time, the felicity of a London life, which, to a
man who can enjoy it with full intellectual relish, is apt to make
existence in any narrower sphere seem insipid or irksome. I doubted
that he would not be willing to come down from his elevated state of
philosophical dignity; from a superiority of wisdom among the wise,
and of learning among the learned; and from flashing his wit upon
minds bright enough to reflect it.

He had disappointed my expectations so long, that I began to despair;
but in spring, 1773, he talked of coming to Scotland that year with so
much firmness, that I hoped he was at last in earnest. I knew that, if
he were once launched from the metropolis, he would go forward very
well; and I got our common friends there to assist in setting him
afloat. To Mrs Thrale in particular, whose enchantment over him seldom
failed, I was much obliged. It was, 'I'll give thee a wind.' 'Thou art
kind.' To attract him, we had invitations from the chiefs Macdonald
and Macleod; and, for additional aid, I wrote to Lord Elibank, Dr
William Robertson, and Dr Beattie.

To Dr Robertson, so far as my letter concerned the present subject, I
wrote as follows:

Our friend, Mr Samuel Johnson, is in great health and spirits; and, I
do think, has a serious resolution to visit Scotland this year. The
more attraction, however, the better; and therefore, though I know he
will be happy to meet you there, it will forward the scheme, if, in
your answer to this, you express yourself concerning it with that
power of which you are so happily possessed, and which may be so
directed as to operate strongly upon him.

His answer to that part of my letter was quite as I could have wished.
It was written with the address and persuasion of the historian of
America.

When I saw you last, you gave us some hopes that you might prevail
with Mr Johnson to make that excursion to Scotland, with the
expectation of which we have long flattered ourselves. If he could
order matters so, as to pass some time in Edinburgh, about the close
of the summer session, and then visit some of the Highland scenes, I
am confident he would be pleased with the grand features of nature in
many parts of this country: he will meet with many persons here who
respect him, and some whom I am persuaded he will think not unworthy
of his esteem. I wish he would make the experiment. He sometimes
cracks his jokes upon us; but he will find that we can distinguish
between the stabs of malevolence, and 'the rebukes of the righteous,
which are like excellent oil [footnote: Our friend Edmund Burke, who
by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from Dr Johnson,
on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my
repeating this passage to him, exclaimed, 'Oil of vitriol!'], and
break not the head'. Offer my best compliments to him, and assure him
that I shall be happy to have the satisfaction of seeing him under my
roof.

To Dr Beattie I wrote,

The chief intention of this letter is to inform you, that I now
seriously believe Mr Samuel Johnson will visit Scotland this year: but
I wish that every power of attraction may be employed to secure our
having so valuable an acquisition, and therefore I hope you will
without delay write to me what I know you think, that I may read it to
the mighty sage, with proper emphasis, before I leave London, which I
must soon. He talks of you with the same warmth that he did last year.
We are to see as much of Scotland as we can, in the months of August
and September. We shall not be long of being at Marischal College
[footnote: This, I find, is a Scotticism. I should have said, 'It will
not be long before we shall be at Marischal College.']. He is
particularly desirous of seeing some of the Western Islands.

Dr Beattie did better: ipse venit. He was, however, so polite as to
wave his privilege of nil mihi rescribus, and wrote from Edinburgh, as
follows:

Your very kind and agreeable favour of the 20th of April overtook me
here yesterday, after having gone to Aberdeen, which place I left
about a week ago. I am to set out this day for London, and hope to
have the honour of paying my respects to Mr Johnson and you, about a
week or ten days hence. I shall then do what I can, to enforce the
topick you mentioned; but at present I cannot enter upon it, as I am
in a very great hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within an hour
or two.

He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the
northern scale. But, indeed, Mr Johnson loved all that he heard from
one whom he tells us, in his Lives of the Poets, Gray found 'a poet, a
philosopher, and a good man'.

My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some
time. The reason will appear, when we come to the Isle of Sky. I shall
then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself
and Mr Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own
letters, as I relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is
valuable belonging to others, than for their own sake.

Luckily Mr Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers, who was about to sail
for the East Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at
Newcastle, and he conducted Dr Johnson to that town. Mr Scott, of
University College, Oxford, (now Dr Scott, of the Commons) accompanied
him from thence to Edinburgh. With such propitious convoys did he
proceed to my native city. But, lest metaphor should make it be
supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he
travelled in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his
most favourite amusements.

Dr Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and
literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally
known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here
to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a
sincere and zealous Christian, of high Church of England and
monarchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be
questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of
piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from
a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in
his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and
irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart;
having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning
and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and
force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head
with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary
advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw
best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest
sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of declamation; but
he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes
talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make errour permanent
and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He was conscious of his
superiority. He loved praise when it was brought to him; but was too
proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. His
mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a
poet. It has been often remarked, that in his poetical pieces, which
it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent, his style is
easier than in his prose. There is deception in this: it is not
easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may dance
with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking--in the common
step--are awkward. He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of
which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to
his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his
deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently
indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to
superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might
incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his
vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud
voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some
additional weight to the sterling metal of his conversation. Lord
Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some
truth, that 'Dr Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary,
were it not for his bow-wow way': but I admit the truth of this only
on some occasions. The Messiah, played upon the Canterbury organ, is
more sublime than when played upon an inferior instrument: but very
slight musick will seem grand, when conveyed to the ear through that
majestick medium. WHILE THEREFORE DOCTOR JOHNSON'S SAYINGS ARE READ,
LET HIS MANNER BE TAKEN ALONG WITH THEM. Let it however be observed,
that the sayings themselves are generally great; that, though he might
be an ordinary composer at times, he was for the most part a Handel.
His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantick,
and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of
the craft of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars
of that evil, which, it was formerly imagined, the royal touch could
cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, and was become a little
dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much
does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his
perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and
sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect
of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or
convulsive contractions, [Footnote: Such they appeared to me: but
since the first edition, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to me, 'that
Dr Johnson's extraordinary gestures were only habits, in which he
indulged himself at certain times. When in company, where he was not
free, or when engaged earnestly in conversation, he never gave way to
such habits, which proves that they were not involuntary', I still
however think, that these gestures were involuntary; for surely had
not that been the case, he would have restrained them in the publick
streets.] of the nature of that distemper called St Vitus's dance. He
wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted-hair buttons of
the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black
worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this tour, when
journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown cloth great coat,
with pockets which might have almost held the two volumes of his folio
dictionary; and he carried in his hand a large English oak stick. Let
me not be censured for mentioning such minute particulars. Every thing
relative to so great a man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam
Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to
know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles. When
I mention the oak stick, it is but letting Hercules have his club;
and, by-and-by, my readers will find this stick will bud, and produce
a good joke.

This imperfect sketch of 'the combination and the form' of that
Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and
after whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased Almighty
God to call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the
fancy of my readers the capital object of the following journal, in
the course of which I trust they will attain to a considerable degree
of acquaintance with him.

His prejudice against Scotland was announced almost as soon as he
began to appear in the world of letters. In his London, a poem, are
the following nervous lines:

For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand
There none are swept by sudden fate away;
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.

The truth is, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself
to look upon all nations but his own as barbarians: not only Hibernia,
and Scotland, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the same
poem. If he was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was
because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in
England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and
because he could not but seen in them that nationality which I believe
no liberal-minded Scotsman will deny. He was indeed, if I may be
allowed the phrase, at bottom much of a John Bull; much of a blunt
'true born Englishman'. There was a stratum of common clay under the
rock of marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating; and he had a
great deal of that quality called humour, which gives an oiliness and
a gloss to every other quality.

I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my
travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France,
I never felt myself from home; and I sincerely love 'every kindred and
tongue and people and nation'. I subscribe to what my late truly
learned and philosophical friend Mr Crosbie said, that the English are
better animals than the Scots; they are nearer the sun; their blood is
richer, and more mellow: but when I humour any of them in an
outrageous contempt of Scotland, I fairly own I treat them as
children. And thus I have, at some moments, found myself obliged to
treat even Dr Johnson.

To Scotland however he ventured; and he returned from it in great
humour, with his prejudices much lessened, and with very grateful
feelings of the hospitality with which he was treated; as is evident
from that admirable work, his Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland, which, to my utter astonishment, has been misapprehended,
even to rancour, by many of my countrymen.

To have the company of Chambers and Scott, he delayed his journey so
long, that the court of session, which rises on the eleventh of
August, was broke up before he got to Edinburgh.

On Saturday the fourteenth of August, 1773, late in the evening, I
received a note from him, that he was arrived at Boyd's inn, at the
head of the Canongate. I went to him directly. He embraced me
cordially; and I exulted in the thought, that I now had him actually
in Caledonia. Mr Scott's amiable manners, and attachment to our
Socrates, at once united me to him. He told me that, before I came in,
the Doctor had unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish cleanliness.
He then drank no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made
sweeter; upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump
of sugar, and put it into it. The Doctor, in indignation, threw it out
of the window. Scott said, he was afraid he would have knocked the
waiter down. Mr Johnson told me, that such another trick was played
him at the house of a lady in Paris. He was to do me the honour to
lodge under my roof. I regretted sincerely that I had not also a room
for Mr Scott. Mr Johnson and I walked arm-in-arm up the High Street,
to my house in James's court: it was a dusky night: I could not
prevent his being assailed by the evening effluvia of Edinburgh. I
heard a late baronet, of some distinction in the political world in
the beginning of the present reign, observe, that 'walking the streets
of Edinburgh at night was pretty perilous, and a good deal
odoriferous'. The peril is much abated, by the care which the
magistrates have taken to enforce the city laws against throwing foul
water from the windows; but, from the structure of the houses in the
old town, which consist of many stories, in each of which a different
family lives, and there being no covered sewers, the odour still
continues. A zealous Scotsman would have wished Mr Johnson to be
without one of his five senses upon this occasion. As we marched
slowly along, he grumbled in my ear, 'I smell you in the dark!' But he
acknowledged that the breadth of the street, and the loftiness of the
buildings on each side, made a noble appearance.

My wife had tea ready for him, which it is well known he delighted to
drink at all hours, particularly when sitting up late, and of which
his able defence against Mr Jonas Hanway should have obtained him a
magnificent reward from the East India Company. He shewed much
complacency upon finding that the mistress of the house was so
attentive to his singular habit; and as no man could be more polite
when he chose to be so, his address to her was most courteous and
engaging; and his conversation soon charmed her into a forgetfulness
of his external appearance.

I did not begin to keep a regular full journal till some days after we
had set out from Edinburgh; but I have luckily preserved a good many
fragments of his Memorabilia from his very first evening in Scotland.

We had, a little before this, had a trial for murder, in which the
judges had allowed the lapse of twenty years since its commission as a
plea in bar, in conformity with the doctrine of prescription in the
civil law, which Scotland and several other countries in Europe have
adopted. He at first disapproved of this; but then he thought there
was something in it, if there had been for twenty years a neglect to
prosecute a crime which was KNOWN. He would not allow that a murder,
by not being DISCOVERED for twenty years, should escape punishment. We
talked of the ancient trial by duel. He did not think it so absurd as
is generally supposed; 'For,' said he, 'it was only allowed when the
question was in equilibria, as when one affirmed and another denied;
and they had a notion that Providence would interfere in favour of him
who was in the right. But as it was found that in a duel, he who was
in the right had not a better chance than he who was in the wrong,
therefore society instituted the present mode of trial, and gave the
advantage to him who is in the right.'

We sat till near two in the morning, having chatted a good while after
my wife left us. She had insisted, that to shew all respect to the
Sage, she would give up her own bed-chamber to him, and take a worse.
This I cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations
which I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to
accept of me as her husband.


Sunday, 15th August

Mr Scott came to breakfast, at which I introduced to Dr Johnson, and
him, my friend Sir William Forbes, now of Pitsligo; a man of whom too
much good cannot be said; who, with distinguished abilities and
application in his profession of a banker, is at once a good
companion, and a good Christian; which I think is saying enough. Yet
it is but justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous
illness, he was watched with the anxious apprehension of a general
calamity; day and night his house was beset with affectionate
inquiries; and, upon his recovery, Te deum was the universal chorus
from the hearts of his countrymen.

Mr Johnson was pleased with my daughter Veronica,[Footnote: "The
saint's name of Veronica was introduced into our family through my
great grandmother Veronica, Countess of Kincardine, a Dutch lady of
the noble house of Sommelsdyck, of which there is a full account in
Bayle's Dictionary. The family had once a princely right in Surinam.
The governour of that settlement was appointed by the States General,
the town of Amsterdam, and Sommelsdyck. The States General have
acquired Sommelsdyck's right; but the family has still great dignity
and opulence, and by intermarriages is connected with many other noble
families. When I was at the Hague, I was received with all the
affection of kindred. The present Sommelsdyck has an important charge
in the Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives. He has honoured me
with his correspondence for these twenty years. My great grandfather,
the husband of Countess Veronica, was Alexander, Earl of Kincardine,
that eminent Royalist whose character is given by Burnet in his
History of his own Times. From him the blood of Bruce flows in my
veins. Of such ancestry who would not be proud? And, as Nihil est,
nisi hoc sciat alter, is peculiarly true of genealogy, who would not
be glad to seize a fair opportunity to let it be known "] then a child
of about four months old. She had the appearance of listening to him.
His motions seemed to her to be intended for her amusement; and when
he stopped, she fluttered, and made a little infantine noise, and a
kind of signal for him to begin again. She would be held close to him;
which was a proof, from simple nature, that his figure was not horrid.
Her fondness for him endeared her still more to me, and I declared she
should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune.

We talked of the practice of the law. William Forbes said, he thought
an honest lawyer should never undertake a cause which he was satisfied
was not a just one. 'Sir,' said Mr Johnson, 'a lawyer has no business
with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless
his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly.
The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
Consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that
every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try
causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not
to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp
the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be
the effect of evidence--what shall be the result of legal argument. As
it rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own cause, lawyers
are a class of the community, who, by study and experience, have
acquired the art and power of arranging evidence, and of applying to
the points of issue what the law has settled. A lawyer is to do for
his client all that his client might fairly do for himself, if he
could. If, by a superiority of attention, of knowledge, of skill, and
a better method of communication, he has the advantage of his
adversary, it is an advantage to which he is entitled. There must
always be some advantage, on one side or other; and it is better that
advantage should be had by talents, than by chance. If lawyers were to
undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be
precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it
judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.' This was
sound practical doctrine, and rationally repressed a too refined
scrupulosity of conscience.

Emigration was at this time a common topick of discourse. Dr Johnson
regretted it as hurtful to human happiness: 'For,' said he, 'it
spreads mankind which weakens the defence of a nation, and lessens the
comfort of living. Men, thinly scattered, make a shift, but a bad
shift, without many things. A smith is ten miles off: they'll do
without a nail or a staple. A taylor is far from them: they'll botch
their own clothes. It is being concentrated which produces high
convenience.'

Sir William Forbes, Mr Scott, and I, accompanied Mr Johnson to the
chapel, founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, for the Service of the
Church of England. The Reverend Mr Carre, the senior clergyman,
preached from these words, 'Because the Lord reigneth, let the earth
be glad.' I was sorry to think Mr Johnson did not attend to the
sermon, Mr Carre's low voice not being strong enough to reach his
hearing. A selection of Mr Carre's sermons has, since his death, been
published by Sir William Forbes, and the world has acknowledged their
uncommon merit. I am well assured Lord Mansfield has pronounced them
to be excellent.

Here I obtained a promise from Lord Chief Baron Orde, that he would
dine at my house next day. I presented Mr Johnson to his Lordship, who
politely said to him, 'I have not the honour of knowing you; but I
hope for it, and to see you at my house. I am to wait on you
tomorrow.' This respectable English judge will be long remembered in
Scotland, where he built an elegant house, and lived in it
magnificently. His own ample fortune, with the addition of his salary,
enabled him to be splendidly hospitable. It may be fortunate for an
individual amongst ourselves to be Lord Chief Baron; and a most worthy
man now has the office; but, in my opinion, it is better for Scotland
in general, that some of our publick employments should be filled by
gentlemen of distinction from the south side of the Tweed, as we have
the benefit of promotion in England. Such an interchange would make a
beneficial mixture of manners, and render our union more complete.
Lord Chief Baron Orde was on good terms with us all, in a narrow
country filled with jarring interests and keen parties; and, though I
well knew his opinion to be the same with my own, he kept himself
aloof at a very critical period indeed, when the Douglas cause shook
the sacred security of birthright in Scotland to its foundation; a
cause, which had it happened before the Union, when there was no
appeal to a British House of Lords, would have left the great fortress
of honours and of property in ruins.

When we got home, Dr Johnson desired to see my books. He took down
Ogden's Sermons on Prayer, on which I set a very high value, having
been much edified by them, and he retired with them to his room. He
did not stay long, but soon joined us in the drawing room. I presented
to him Mr Robert Arbuthnot, a relation of the celebrated Dr Arbuthnot,
and a man of literature and taste. To him we were obliged for a
previous recommendation, which secured us a very agreeable reception
at St Andrews, and which Dr Johnson, in his Journey, ascribes to 'some
invisible friend'.

Of Dr Beattie, Mr Johnson said, 'Sir, he has written like a man
conscious of the truth, and feeling his own strength. Treating your
adversary with respect, is giving him an advantage to which he is not
entitled. The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are
impressed by character; so that, if you allow your adversary a
respectable character, they will think, that though you differ from
him, you may be in the wrong. Sir, treating your adversary with
respect, is striking soft in a battle. And as to Hume--a man who has
so much conceit as to tell all mankind that they have been bubbled for
ages, and he is the wise man who sees better than they--a man who has
so little scrupulosity as to venture to oppose those principles which
have been thought necessary to human happiness--is he to be surprised
if another man comes and laughs at him? If he is the great man he
thinks himself, all this cannot hurt him: it is like throwing peas
against a rock.' He added 'something much too rough', both as to Mr
Hume's head and heart, which I suppress. Violence is, in my opinion,
not suitable to the Christian cause. Besides, I always lived on good
terms with Mr Hume, though I have frankly told him, I was not clear
that it was right in me to keep company with him, 'But', said I, 'how
much better are you than your books!' He was cheerful, obliging, and
instructive; he was charitable to the poor; and many an agreeable hour
have I passed with him: I have preserved some entertaining and
interesting memoirs of him, particularly when he knew himself to be
dying, which I may some time or other communicate to the world. I
shall not, however, extol him so very highly as Dr Adam Smith does,
who says, in a letter to Mr Strahan the printer (not a confidential
letter to his friend, but a letter which is published [Footnote: This
letter, though shattered by the sharp shot of Dr Horne of Oxford's
wit, in the character of 'One of the People called Christians', is
still prefixed to Mr Home's excellent History of England, like a poor
invalid on the piquet guard, or like a list of quack medicines sold by
the same bookseller, by whom a work of whatever nature is published;
for it has no connection with his History, let it have what it may
with what are called his Philosophical Works. A worthy friend of mine
in London was lately consulted by a lady of quality, of most
distinguished merit, what was the best History of England for her son
to read. My friend recommended Hume's. But, upon recollecting that its
usher was a superlative panegyrick on one, who endeavoured to sap the
credit of our holy religion, he revoked his recommendation. I am
really sorry for this ostentatious alliance; because I admire The
Theory of Moral Sentiments, and value the greatest part of An Inquiry
into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Why should such a
writer be so forgetful of human comfort, as to give any countenance to
that dreary infidelity which would make us poor indeed!'] with all
formality): 'Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his
life time and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of
a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human
frailty will permit.' Let Dr Smith consider: Was not Mr Hume blest
with good health, good spirits, good friends, a competent and
increasing fortune? And had he not also a perpetual feast of fame?
But, as a learned friend has observed to me, 'What trials did he
undergo, to prove the perfection of his virtue? Did he ever experience
any great instance of adversity?' When I read this sentence, delivered
by my old Professor of Moral Philosophy, I could not help exclaiming
with the Psalmist, 'Surely I have now more understanding than my
teachers!'

While we were talking, there came a note to me from Dr William
Robertson.

Dear Sir,


I have been expecting every day to hear from you, of Dr Johnson's
arrival. Pray, what do you know about his motions? I long to take him
by the hand. I write this from the college, where I have only this
scrap of paper. Ever yours,

W.R.
Sunday.

It pleased me to find Dr Robertson thus eager to meet Dr Johnson. I
was glad I could answer, that he was come: and I begged Dr Robertson
might be with us as soon as he could. Sir William Forbes, Mr Scott, Mr
Arbuthnot, and another gentleman dined with us. 'Come, Dr Johnson,'
said I, 'it is commonly thought that our veal in Scotland is not good.
But here is some which I believe you will like.' There was no catching
him: JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, what is commonly thought, I should take to be
true. YOUR veal may be good; but that will only be an exception to the
general opinion; not a proof against it.'

Dr Robertson, according to the custom of Edinburgh at that time, dined
in the interval between the forenoon and afternoon service, which was
then later than now; so we had not the pleasure of his company till
dinner was over, when he came and drank wine with us. And then began
some animated dialogue, of which here follows a pretty full note.

We talked of Mr Burke. Dr Johnson said, he had great variety of
knowledge, store of imagery, copiousness of language. ROBERTSON. 'He
has wit too.' JOHNSON. 'No, sir; he never succeeds there. 'Tis low;
'tis conceit. I used to say. Burke never once made a good joke.

[Footnote: This was one of the points upon which Dr Johnson was
strangely heterodox. For, surely, Mr Burke, with his other remarkable
qualities, is also distinguished for his wit, and for wit of all kinds
too; not merely that power of language which Pope chooses to
denominate wit.

True wit is Nature to advantage drest;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest.

but surprising allusions, brilliant sallies of vivacity, and pleasant
conceits. His speeches in Parliament are strewed with them. Take, for
instance, the variety which he has given in his wide range, yet exact
detail, when exhibiting his Reform Bill. And his conversation abounds
in wit. Let me put down a specimen. I told him, I had seen, at a blue
stocking assembly, a number of ladies sitting round a worthy and tall
friend of ours, listening to his literature. 'Ay,' said he, 'like
maids round a May-pole.' I told him, I had found a perfect definition
of human nature, as distinguished from the animal. An ancient
philosopher said, man was a 'two-legged animal without feathers', upon
which his rival sage had a cock plucked bare, and set him down in the
school before all the disciples, as a 'Philosophick Man'. Dr Franklin
said, man was 'a tool-making animal', which is very well; for no
animal but man makes a thing, by means of which he can make another
thing. But this applies to very few of the species. My definition of
man is, 'a Cooking Animal'. The beasts have memory, judgment and all
the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no
beast is a cook. The trick of the monkey using the cat's paw to roast
a chestnut is only a piece of shrewd malice in that turpissima bestia,
which humbles us so sadly by its similarity to us. Man alone can dress
a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in
seasoning what he himself eats. 'Your definition is good,' said Mr
Burke, 'and I now see the full force of the common proverb. "There is
REASON in roasting of eggs".' When Mr Wilkes, in his days of
tumultuous opposition, was borne upon the shoulders of the mob. Mr
Burke (as Mr Wilkes told me himself, with classical admiration,)
applied to him what Horace says of Pindar,

  ... numerisque fertur
  LEGE solutis.


Sir Joshua Reynolds, who agrees with me entirely as to Mr Burke's
fertility of wit said, that this was 'dignifying a pun'. He also
observed, that he has often heard Burke say, in the course of an
evening, ten good things, each of which would have served a noted wit
(whom he named) to live upon for a twelvemonth.

I find, since the former edition, that some persons have objected to
the instances which I have given of Mr Burke's wit, as not doing
justice to my very ingenious friend; the specimens produced having, it
is alleged, more of conceit than real wit and being merely sportive
sallies of the moment, not justifying the encomium which they think
with me, he undoubtedly merits. I was well aware, how hazardous it was
to exhibit particular instances of wit, which is of so airy and
spiritual a nature as often to elude the hand that attempts to grasp
it. The excellence and efficacy of a bon mot depend frequently so much
on the occasion on which it is spoken, on the particular manner of the
speaker, on the person of whom it is applied, the previous
introduction, and a thousand minute particulars which cannot be easily
enumerated, that it is always dangerous to detach a witty saying from
the group to which it belongs, and to see it before the eye of the
spectator, divested of those concomitant circumstances, which gave it
animation, mellowness, and relief. I ventured, however, at all hazards
to put down the first instances that occurred to me, as proofs of Mr
Burke's lively and brilliant fancy; but am very sensible that his
numerous friends could have suggested many of a superior quality.
Indeed, the being in company with him, for a single day, is sufficient
to shew that what I have asserted is well founded; and it was only
necessary to have appealed to all who know him intimately, for a
complete refutation of the heterodox opinion entertained by Dr Johnson
on this subject. HE allowed Mr Burke, as the reader will find
hereafter, to be a man of consummate and unrivalled abilities in every
light except that now under consideration; and the variety of his
allusions, and splendour of his imagery, have made such an impression
on ALL THE REST of the world, that superficial observers are apt to
overlook his other merits, and to suppose that wit is his chief and
most prominent excellence; when in fact it is only one of the many
talents that he possesses, which are so various and extraordinary,
that it is very difficult to ascertain precisely the rank and value of
each.] What I most envy Burke for, is, his being constantly the same.
He is never what we call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk,
nor in haste to leave off.' BOSWELL. 'Yet he can listen.' JOHNSON.
'No; I cannot say he is good at that. So desirous is he to talk, that,
if one is speaking at this end of the table, he'll speak to somebody
at the other end. Burke, sir, is such a man, that if you met him for
the first time in the street where you were stopped by a drove of
oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five
minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner, that, when you parted, you
would say, this is an extraordinary man. Now, you may be long enough
with me, without finding any thing extraordinary.' He said, he
believed Burke was intended for the law; but either had not money
enough to follow it, or had not diligence enough. He said, he could
not understand how a man could apply to one thing, and not to another.
Robertson said, one man had more judgment, another more imagination.
JOHNSON. 'No, sir; it is only, one man has more mind than another. He
may direct it differently; he may, by accident, see the success of one
kind of study, and take a desire to excel in it. I am persuaded that,
had Sir Isaac Newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very fine
epick poem. I could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry.'
BOSWELL. 'Yet, sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law.'
JOHNSON. 'Because, sir, I had not money to study law. Sir, the man who
has vigour, may walk to the east, just as well as to the west, if he
happens to turn his head that way.' BOSWELL. 'But, sir, 'tis like
walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better
than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs
being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical
powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that manner. One
mind is a vice, and holds fast; there's a good memory. Another is a
file; and he is a disputant, a controversialist. Another is a razor;
and he is sarcastical.' We talked of Whitefield. He said, he was at
the same college with him, and knew him 'before he began to be better
than other people' (smiling); that he believed he sincerely meant
well, but had a mixture of politicks and ostentation: whereas Wesley
thought of religion only. [Footnote: That cannot be said now, after
the flagrant part which Mr John Wesley took against our American
brethren, when, in his own name, he threw amongst his enthusiastic
flock, the very individual combustibles of Dr Johnson's Taxation no
Tyranny: and after the intolerant spirit which he manifested against
our fellow Christians of the Roman Catholick Communion, for which that
able champion, Father O'Leary, has given him so hearty a drubbing. But
I should think myself very unworthy, if I did not at the same time
acknowledge Mr John Wesley's merit, as a veteran 'Soldier of Jesus
Christ', who has, I do believe, 'turned many from darkness into light,
and from the power of Satan to the living God'.] Robertson said,
Whitefield had strong natural eloquence, which, if cultivated, would
have done great things. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, I take it, he was at the
height of what his abilities could do, and was sensible of it. He had
the ordinary advantages of education; but he chose to pursue that
oratory which is for the mob.' BOSWELL. 'He had great effect on the
passions.' JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, I don't think so. He could not
represent a succession of pathetick images. He vociferated, and made
an impression. THERE, again, was a mind like a hammer.' Dr Johnson now
said, a certain eminent political friend of ours was wrong, in his
maxim of sticking to a certain set of MEN on all occasions. 'I can see
that a man may do right to stick to a PARTY,' said he;' that is to
say, he is a WHIG, or he is a TORY, and he thinks one of those parties
upon the whole the best, and that to make it prevail, it must be
generally supported, though, in particulars, it may be wrong. He takes
its faggot of principles, in which there are fewer rotten sticks than
in the other, though some rotten sticks to be sure; and they cannot
well be separated. But, to bind one's self to one man, or one set of
men (who may be right to-day and wrong to-morrow), without any general
preference of system, I must disapprove.' [Footnote: If due attention
were paid to this observation, there would be more virtue, even in
politicks. What Dr Johnson justly condemned, has, I am sorry to say,
greatly increased in the present reign. At the distance of four years
from this conversation, 21st February 1777, My Lord Archbishop of
York, in his 'Sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts', thus indignantly describes the then state of
parties: 'Parties once had a PRINCIPLE belonging to them, absurd
perhaps, and indefensible, but still carrying a notion of DUTY, by
which honest minds might easily be caught.

'But they are now COMBINATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS, who, instead of being
the sons and servants of the community, make a league for advancing
their PRIVATE INTERESTS. It is their business to hold high the notion
of POLITICAL HONOUR. I believe and trust, it is not injurious to say,
that such a bond is no better than that by which the lowest and
wickedest combinations are held together; and that it denotes the last
stage of political depravity.'

To find a thought, which just shewed itself to us from the mind of
JOHNSON, thus appearing again at such a distance of time, and without
any communication between them, enlarged to full growth in the mind of
MARKHAM, is a curious object of philosophical contemplation. That two
such great and luminous minds should have been so dark in one
corner--that THEY should have held it to be 'wicked rebellion in the
British subjects established in America, to resist the abject
condition of holding all their property at the mercy of British
subjects remaining at home, while their allegiance to our common Lord
the King was to be preserved inviolate'--is a striking proof to me,
either that 'He who fitteth in Heaven', scorns the loftiness of human
pride, or that the evil spirit, whose personal existence I strongly
believe, and even in this age am confirmed in that belief by a Fell,
nay, by a Hurd, has more power than some choose to allow.]

He told us of Cooke, who translated Hesiod, and lived twenty years on
a translation of Plautus, for which he was always taking
subscriptions; and that he presented Foote to a club, in the following
singular manner: 'This is the nephew of the gentleman who was lately
hung in chains for murdering his brother.'

In the evening I introduced to Mr Johnson [Footnote: It may be
observed, that I sometimes call my great friend, MR Johnson, sometimes
DR Johnson, though he had at this time a doctor's degree from Trinity
College, Dublin. The University of Oxford afterwards conferred it upon
him by a diploma, in very honourable terms. It was some time before I
could bring myself to call him Doctor; but as he has been long known
by that title, I shall give it to him in the rest of this Journal.]
two good friends of mine, Mr William Nairne, advocate, and Mr Hamilton
of Sundrum, my neighbour in the country, both of whom supped with us.
I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Dr Johnson
displayed another of his heterodox opinions--a contempt of tragick
acting. He said, 'the action of all players in tragedy is bad. It
should be a man's study to repress those signs of emotion and passion,
as they are called.' He was of a directly contrary opinion to that of
Fielding, in his Tom Jones; who makes Partridge say, of Garrick, 'why,
I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I
should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did.'
For, when I asked him, 'Would not you, sir, start as Mr Garrick does,
if you saw a ghost?' He answered, 'I hope not. If I did, I should
frighten the ghost.'


Monday, 16th August

Dr William Robertson came to breakfast. We talked of Ogden on Prayer.
Dr Johnson said, 'The same arguments which are used against God's
hearing prayer, will serve against his rewarding good, and punishing
evil. He has resolved, he has declared, in the former case as in the
latter.' He had last night looked into Lord Hailes's Remarks on the
History of Scotland. Dr Robertson and I said, it was a pity Lord
Hailes did not write greater things. His lordship had not then
published his Annals of Scotland. JOHNSON. 'I remember I was once on a
visit at the house of a lady for whom I had a high respect. There was
a good deal of company in the room. When they were gone, I said to
this lady, "What foolish talking have we had!" "Yes," said she, "but
while they talked, you said nothing." I was struck with reproof. How
much better is the man who does nothing. Besides, I love anecdotes. I
fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except
in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and
illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. If a man
is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in
getting them, and get but a few, in comparison of what we might get.'

Dr Robertson said, the notions of Eupham Macallan. a fanatick woman,
of whom Lord Hailes gives a sketch, were still prevalent among some of
the Presbyterians; and therefore it was right in Lord Hailes, a man of
known piety, to undeceive them.

We walked out, that Dr Johnson might see some of the things which we
have to shew at Edinburgh. We went to the Parliament House, where the
Parliament of Scotland sat, and where the Ordinary Lords of Session
hold their courts; and to the New Session House adjoining to it, where
our Court of Fifteen (the fourteen Ordinaries, with the Lord President
at their head) sit as a court of Review. We went to the Advocates'
Library, of which Dr Johnson took a cursory view, and then to what is
called the Laigh (or Under) Parliament House, where the records of
Scotland, which has an universal security by register, are deposited,
till the great Register Office be finished. I was pleased to behold Dr
Samuel Johnson rolling about in this old magazine of antiquities.
There was, by this time, a pretty numerous circle of us attending upon
him. Somebody talked of happy moments for composition; and how a man
can write at one time, and not at another. 'Nay,' said Dr Johnson, 'a
man may write at any time, if he will set himself DOGGEDLY [Footnote:
This word is commonly used to signify sullenly, gloomily: and in that
sense alone it appears in Dr Johnson's Dictionary. I suppose he meant
by it 'with an OBSTINATE RESOLUTION, similar to that of a sullen
man'.] to it.'

I here began to indulge old Scottish sentiments, and to express a warm
regret, that, by our union with England, we were no more--our
independent kingdom was lost. JOHNSON. 'Sir, never talk of your
independency, who could let your Queen remain twenty years in
captivity, and then be put to death, without even a pretence of
justice, without your ever attempting to rescue her; and such a Queen
too! as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his
life for.' Worthy MR JAMES KERR, Keeper of the Records. 'Half our
nation was bribed by English money.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that is no
defence: that makes you worse.' Good MR BROWN, Keeper of the Advocates
Library. 'We had better say nothing about it.' BOSWELL. 'You would
have been glad, however, to have had us last war, sir, to fight your
battles!' JOHNSON. 'We should have had you for the same price, though
there had been no Union, as we might have had Swiss, or other troops.
No, no, I shall agree to a separation. You have only to GO HOME.' Just
as he had said this, I to divert the subject, shewed him the signed
assurances of the three successive Kings of the Hanover family, to
maintain the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland. 'We'll give you
that,' said he, 'into the bargain.'

We next went to the great church of St Giles, which has lost its
original magnificence in the inside, by being divided into four places
of Presbyterian worship. 'Come,' said Dr Johnson jocularly to
Principal Robertson, [Footnote: I have hitherto called him Dr William
Robertson, to distinguish him from Dr James Robertson, who is soon to
make his appearance. But 'Principal', from his being the head of our
college, is his usual designation, and is shorter; so I shall use it
hereafter.] 'let me see what was once a church!' We entered that
division which was formerly called the New Church, and of late the
High Church, so well known by the eloquence of Dr Hugh Blair. It is
now very elegantly fitted up; but it was then shamefully dirty. Dr
Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we came to the great door
of the Royal Infirmary, where, upon a board, was this inscription,
CLEAN YOUR FEET! he turned about slyly, and said, 'There is no
occasion for putting this at the doors of your churches!'

We then conducted him down the Post-house stairs, Parliament Close,
and made him look up from the Cow-gate to the highest building in
Edinburgh (from which he had just descended), being thirteen floors or
stories from the ground upon the back elevation; the front wall being
built upon the edge of the hill, and the back wall rising from the
bottom of the hill several stories before it comes to a level with the
front wall. We proceeded to the College, with the Principal at our
head. Dr Adam Fergusson, whose Essay on the History of Civil Society
gives him a respectable place in the ranks of literature, was with us.
As the College buildings are indeed very mean, the Principal said to
Dr Johnson, that he must give them the same epithet that a Jesuit did
when shewing a poor college abroad: Hae miseriae nostrae. Dr Johnson
was, however, much pleased with the library, and with the conversation
of Dr James Robertson, Professor of Oriental Languages, the Librarian.
We talked of Kennicot's edition of the Hebrew Bible, and hoped it
would be quite faithful. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I know not any crime so great
that a man could contrive to commit, as poisoning the sources of
eternal truth.'

I pointed out to him where there formerly stood an old wall enclosing
part of the college, which I remember bulged out in a threatening
manner, and of which there was a common tradition similar to that
concerning Bacon's study at Oxford, that it would fall upon some very
learned man. It had some time before this been taken down, that the
street might be widened, and a more convenient wall built. Dr Johnson,
glad of an opportunity to have a pleasant hit at Scottish learning,
said, 'they have been afraid it never would fall'.

We shewed him the Royal Infirmary, for which, and for every other
exertion of generous publick spirit in his power, that noble-minded
citizen of Edinburgh, George Drummond, will be ever held in honourable
remembrance. And we were too proud not to carry him to the Abbey of
Holyrood House, that beautiful piece of architecture, but, alas! that
deserted mansion of royalty, which Hamilton of Bangour, in one of his
elegant poems, calls

A virtuous palace, where no monarch dwells.

I was much entertained while Principal Robertson fluently harangued to
Dr Johnson, upon the spot, concerning scenes of his celebrated History
of Scotland. We surveyed that part of the palace appropriated to the
Duke of Hamilton, as Keeper, in which our beautiful Queen Mary lived,
and in which David Rizzio was murdered; and also the State Rooms. Dr
Johnson was a great reciter of all sorts of things serious or comical.
I over-heard him repeating here, in a kind of muttering tone, a line
of the old ballad, 'Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-Night':

'And ran him through the fair body!'
[Footnote: The stanza from which he took this line is:
But then rose up all Edinburgh,
They rose up by thousands three;
A cowardly Scot came John behind,
And ran him through the fair body!]

We returned to my house, where there met him, at dinner, the Duchess
of Douglas, Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron, Sir William
Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr Cullen, advocate. Before dinner, he
told us of a curious conversation between the famous George Faulkner
and him. George said that England had drained Ireland of fifty
thousand pounds in specie, annually, for fifty years. 'How so, sir!'
said Dr Johnson, 'you must have a very great trade?' 'No trade.' 'Very
rich mines?' 'No mines.' 'From whence, then, does all this money
come?' 'Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of
Ireland!'

He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift; for
I once took a liberty to ask him, if Swift had personally offended
him, and he told me, he had not. He said to-day, 'Swift is clear, but
he is shallow. In coarse humour, he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in
delicate humour, he is inferior to Addison: so he is inferior to his
contemporaries; without putting him against the whole world. I doubt
if the Tale of a Tub was his: it has so much more thinking, more
knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are
indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi.'

We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or
growse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and, so far as wisdom
and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the
palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be
deficient.

Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our Deputy Commander in Chief, who was not
only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars I
ever knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in
the authenticity of Ossian's poetry. Dr Johnson took the opposite side
of that perplexed question; and I was afraid the dispute would have
run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper,
changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's notion
of men having tails, and called him a Judge, a posteriori, which
amused Dr Johnson; and thus hostilities were prevented.

At supper we had Dr Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr Adam Fergusson,
and Mr Crosbie, advocate. Witchcraft was introduced. Mr Crosbie said,
he thought it the greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits
counteracting the Deity, and raising storms, for instance, to destroy
his creatures. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, if moral evil be consistent with
the government of the Deity, why may not physical evil be also
consistent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil
spirits, than evil embodied spirits. And as to storms, we know there
are such things; and it is no worse that evil spirits raise them, than
that they rise.' CROSBIE. 'But it is not credible, that witches should
have effected what they are said in stories to have done.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, I am not defending their credibility. I am only saying, that
your arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of
witchcraft.' (Dr Fergusson said to me, aside, 'He is right.') 'And
then, sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized, agreeing in the
belief of the agency of preternatural powers. You must take evidence:
you must consider, that wise and great men have condemned witches to
die.' CROSBIE. 'But an Act of Parliament put an end to witchcraft.'
JOHNSON. 'No, sir; witchcraft had ceased; and therefore an Act of
Parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not
witchcraft. Why it ceased, we cannot tell, as we cannot tell the
reason of many other things.' Dr Cullen, to keep up the gratification
of mysterious disquisition, with the grave address for which he is
remarkable in his companionable as in his professional hours, talked,
in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and conversing in
their sleep. I am very sorry I have no note of this. We talked of the
Ouran-Outang, and of Lord Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught
to speak. Dr Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr Crosbie said, that
Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in
short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse. JOHNSON.
'But, sir, it is as possible that the Ouran-Outang does not speak, as
that he speaks. However, I shall not contest the point. I should have
thought it not possible to find a Monboddo; yet HE exists.' I again
mentioned the stage. JOHNSON. 'The appearance of a player, with whom I
have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character
he represents. Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character
he represents. They say, "See Garrick! how he looks to-night! See how
he'll clutch the dagger!" That is the buzz of the theatre.'


Tuesday, 17th August

Sir William Forbes came to breakfast, and brought with him Dr
Blacklock, whom he introduced to Dr Johnson, who received him with a
most humane complacency. 'Dear Blacklock, I am glad to see you!'
Blacklock seemed to be much surprised, when Dr Johnson said, 'it was
easier to him to write poetry than to compose his Dictionary. His mind
was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other. Besides;
composing a dictionary requires books and a desk: you can make a poem
walking in the fields, or lying in bed.' Dr Blacklock spoke of
scepticism in morals and religion, with apparant uneasiness, as if he
wished for more certainty. Dr Johnson, who had thought it all over,
and whose vigorous understanding was fortified by much experience,
thus encouraged the blind bard to apply to higher speculations what we
willingly submit to in common life: in short, he gave him more
familiarly the able and fair reasoning of Butler's Analogy: 'Why, sir,
the greatest concern we have in this world, the choice of our
profession, must be determined without demonstrative reasoning. Human
life is not yet so well known, as that we can have it. And take the
case of a man who is ill. I call two physicians: they differ in
opinion. I am not to lie down, and die between them: I must do
something.' The conversation then turned on atheism; on that horrible
book, Systeme de la Nature; and on the supposition of an eternal
necessity, without design, without a governing mind. JOHNSON. 'If it
were so, why has it ceased? Why don't we see men thus produced around
us now? Why, at least, does it not keep pace, in some measure, with
the progress of time? If it stops because there is now no need of it,
then it is plain there is, and ever has been, an all-powerful
intelligence. But stay!' said he, with one of his satyrick laughs.
'Hal ha! ha! I shall suppose Scotchmen made necessarily, and
Englishmen by choice.'

At dinner this day, we had Sir Alexander Dick, whose amiable
character, and ingenious and cultivated mind, are so generally known
(he was then on the verge of seventy, and is now (1785) eighty-one,
with his faculties entire, his heart warm, and his temper gay); Sir
David Dalrymple; Lord Hailes; Mr Maclaurin, advocate; Dr Gregory, who
now worthily fills his father's medical chair; and my uncle, Dr
Boswell. This was one of Dr Johnson's best days. He was quite in his
element. All was literature and taste, without any interruption. Lord
Hailes, who is one of the best philologists in Great Britain, who has
written papers in the World, and a variety of other works in prose and
in verse, both Latin and English, pleased him highly. He told him, he
had discovered the Life of Cheynel, in the Student, to be his.
JOHNSON. 'No one else knows it.' Dr Johnson had, before this, dictated
to me a law-paper, upon a question purely in the law of Scotland,
concerning 'vicious intromission', that is to say, intermeddling with
the effects of a deceased person, without a regular title; which
formerly was understood to subject the intermeddler to payment of all
the defunct's debts. The principle has of late been relaxed. Dr
Johnson's argument was, for a renewal of its strictness. The paper was
printed, with additions by me, and given into the Court of Session.
Lord Hailes knew Dr Johnson's part not to be mine, and pointed out
exactly where it began, and where it ended. Dr Johnson said, 'It is
much, now, that his lordship can distinguish so.'

In Dr Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes, there is the following
passage:

The teeming mother, anxious for her race,
Begs, for each birth, the fortune of a face:
Yet VANE could tell, what ills from beauty spring;
And SEDLEY curs'd the charms which pleas'd a king.

Lord Hailes told him, he was mistaken in the instances he had given of
unfortunate fair ones; for neither Vane nor Sedley had a title to that
description. His Lordship has since been so obliging as to send me a
note of this, for the communication of which I am sure my readers will
thank me.

The lines in the tenth Satire of Juvenal, according to my alteration,
should have run thus:

Yet SHORE [Footnote: Mistress of Edward IV.] could tell--;
And VALIERE [Footnote: Mistress of Louis XIV.] curs'd--.

The first was a penitent by compulsion, the second by sentiment;
though the truth is, Mademoiselle de la Valiere threw herself (but
still from sentiment) in the King's way.

'Our friend chose Vane, who was far from being well-looked; and
Sedley, who was so ugly, that Charles II said, his brother had her by
way of penance.'

Mr Maclaurin's learning and talents enabled him to do his part very
well in Dr Johnson's company. He produced two epitaphs upon his
father, the celebrated mathematician. One was in English, of which Dr
Johnson did not change one word. In the other, which was in Latin, he
made several alterations. In place of the very words of Virgil, Ubi
luctus et pavor et plurima mortis imago, he wrote Ubi luctus regnant
et pavor. He introduced the word prorsus into the line Mortalibus
prorsus non absit solatium and after Hujus enim scripta evolve, he
added, Mentemque tantarum rerum capacem corpori caduco superstitem
crede; which is quite applicable to Dr Johnson himself. [Footnote: Mr
Maclaurin's epitaph, as engraved on a marble tombstone, in the
Gray-Friars church-yard, Edinburgh:

Infra situs est
COLIN MACLAURIN
Mathes. olim in Acad. Edin. Prof.
Electus ipso Newtono suadente.
H. L. P. F.
Non ut nomini paterno consulat,
Nam tali auxilio nil eget;
Sed ut in hoc infelici campo,
Ubi luctus regnant et pavor,
Mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium:
Hujus enim scripta evolve,
Mentemque tantarum rerum capacem
Corpori caduco superstitem crede.]

Mr Murray, advocate, who married a niece of Lord Mansfield's and is
now one of the Judges of Scotland, by the title of Lord Henderland,
sat with us a part of the evening; but did not venture to say any
thing, that I remember, though he is certainly possessed of talents
which would have enabled him to have shewn himself to advantage, if
too great anxiety had not prevented him.

At supper we had Dr Alexander Webster, who, though not learned, had
such a knowledge of mankind, such a fund of information and
entertainment, so clear a head and such accommodating manners, that Dr
Johnson found him a very agreeable companion.

When Dr Johnson and I were left by ourselves, I read to him my notes
of the opinions of our Judges upon the questions of Literary Property.
He did not like them; and said, 'they make me think of your Judges not
with that respect which I should wish to do'. To the argument of one
of them, that there can be no property in blasphemy or nonsense, he
answered, 'then your rotten sheep are mine! By that rule, when a man's
house falls into decay, he must lose it.' I mentioned an argument of
mine, that literary performances are not taxed. As Churchill says,

No statesman yet has thought it worth his pains
To tax our labours, or excite our brains;

and therefore they are not property. 'Yet,' said he, 'we hang a man
for stealing a horse, and horses are not taxed.' Mr Pitt has since put
an end to that argument.


Wednesday, 18th August

On this day we set out from Edinburgh. We should gladly have had Mr
Scott to go with us; but he was obliged to return to England. I have
given a sketch of Dr Johnson: my readers may wish to know a little of
his fellow traveller. Think then, of a gentleman of ancient blood, the
pride of which was his predominant passion. He was then in his
thirty-third year, and had been about four years happily married. His
inclination was to be a soldier; but his father, a respectable judge,
had pressed him into the profession of the law. He had travelled a
good deal, and seen many varieties of human life. He had thought more
than any body supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general
learning and knowledge. He had all Dr Johnson's principles, with some
degree of relaxation. He had rather too little, than too much
prudence, and, his imagination being lively, he often said things of
which the effect was very different from the intention. He resembled
sometimes

The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.

He cannot deny himself the vanity of finishing with the encomium of Dr
Johnson, whose friendly partiality to the companion of his Tour
represents him as one, 'whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and
whose gaiety of conversation, and civility of manners, are sufficient
to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less
hospitable than we have passed.'

Dr Johnson thought it unnecessary to put himself to the additional
expense of bringing with him Francis Barber, his faithful black
servant; so we were attended only by my man, Joseph Ritter, a
Bohemian; a fine stately fellow above six feet high, who had been over
a great part of Europe, and spoke many languages. He was the best
servant I ever saw. Let not my readers disdain his introduction! For
Dr Johnson gave him this character: 'Sir, he is a civil man, and a
wise man.'

From an erroneous apprehension of violence, Dr Johnson had provided a
pair of pistols, some gun-powder, and a quantity of bullets: but upon
being assured we should run no risk of meeting any robbers, he left
his arms and ammunition in an open drawer, of which he gave my wife
the charge. He also left in that drawer one volume of a pretty full
and curious Diary of his Life, of which I have a few fragments; but
the book has been destroyed. I wish female curiosity had been strong
enough to have had it all transcribed, which might easily have been
done; and I should think the theft, being pro bono publico, might have
been forgiven. But I may be wrong. My wife told me she never once
looked into it. She did not seem quite easy when we left her: but away
we went!

Mr Nairne, advocate, was to go with us as far as St Andrews. It gives
me pleasure that, by mentioning his name, I connect his title to the
just and handsome compliment paid him by Dr Johnson, in his book: 'A
gentleman who could stay with us only long enough to make us know how
much we lost by his leaving us.' When we came to Leith, I talked with
perhaps too boasting an air, how pretty the Frith of Forth looked; as
indeed, after the prospect from Constantinople, of which I have been
told, and that from Naples, which I have seen, I believe the view of
that Frith and its environs, from the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, is the
finest prospect in Europe. 'Ay,' said Dr Johnson, 'that is the state
of the world. Water is the same every where.

Una est injusti caerula forma maris. [Footnote: Non illic urbes, non
tu mirabere silvas: Una est injusti caerula forma maris.

Ovid. Amor. II. xi.

Nor groves nor towns the ruthless ocean shows;
Unvaried still its azure surface flows.]

I told him the port here was the mouth of the river or water of Leith.
'Not LETHE,' said Mr Nairne. 'Why, sir,' said Dr Johnson, 'when a
Scotchman sets out from this port for England, he forgets his native
country.' NAIRNE. 'I hope, sir, you will forget England here.'
JOHNSON. 'Then 'twill be still more Lethe.' He observed of the pier or
quay, 'you have no occasion for so large a one: your trade does not
require it: but you are like a shopkeeper who takes a shop, not only
for what he has to put into it, but that it may be believed he has a
great deal to put into it'. It is very true, that there is now,
comparatively, little trade upon the eastern coast of Scotland. The
riches of Glasgow shew how much there is in the west; and perhaps we
shall find trade travel westward on a great scale, as well as a small.

We talked of a man's drowning himself. JOHNSON. 'I should never think
it time to make away with myself.' I put the case of Eustace Budgell,
who was accused of forging a will, and sunk himself in the Thames,
before the trial of its authenticity came on. 'Suppose, sir,' said I,
'that a man is absolutely sure, that, if he lives a few days longer,
he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be
utter disgrace and expulsion from society.' JOHNSON. 'Then, sir, let
him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he
is NOT known. Don't let him go to the devil where he IS known!'

He then said, 'I see a number of people bare-footed here: I suppose
you all went so before the Union. Boswell, your ancestors went so,
when they had as much land as your family has now. Yet Auchinleck is
the Field of Stones: there would be bad going bare-footed here. The
lairds, however, did it.' I bought some speldings, fish (generally
whitings) salted and dried in a particular manner, being dipped in the
sea and dried in the sun, and eaten by the Scots by way of a relish.
He had never seen them, though they are sold in London. I insisted on
scottifying [Footnote: My friend, General Campbell, Governour of
Madras, tells me, that they make speldings in the East Indies,
particularly at Bombay, where they call them Bambaloes.] his palate;
but he was very reluctant. With difficulty I prevailed with him to let
a bit of one of them lie in his mouth. He did not like it.

In crossing the Frith, Dr Johnson determined that we should land upon
Inch Keith. On approaching it, we first observed a high rocky shore.
We coasted about, and put into a little bay on the north-west. We
clambered up a very steep ascent, on which was very good grass, but
rather a profusion of thistles. There were sixteen head of black
cattle grazing upon the island. Lord Hailes observed to me, that
Brantome calls it L'isle des Chevaux, and that it was probably 'a
SAFER stable' than many others in his time. The fort, with an
inscription on it, MARIA RE 1564, is strongly built. Dr Johnson
examined it with much attention. He stalked like a giant among the
luxuriant thistles and nettles. There are three wells in the island;
but we could not find one in the fort. There must probably have been
one, though now filled up, as a garrison could not subsist without it.
But I have dwelt too long on this little spot. Dr Johnson afterwards
bade me try to write a description of our discovering Inch Keith, in
the usual style of travellers, describing fully every particular;
stating the grounds on which we concluded that it must have once been
inhabited, and introducing many sage reflections; and we should see
how a thing might be covered in words, so as to induce people to come
and survey it. All that was told might be true, and yet in reality
there might be nothing to see. He said, 'I'd have this island. I'd
build a house, make a good landing-place, have a garden, and vines,
and all sorts of trees. A rich man, of a hospitable turn, here, would
have many visitors from Edinburgh.' When we had got into our boat
again, he called to me, 'Come, now, pay a classical compliment to the
island on quitting it.' I happened luckily, in allusion to the
beautiful Queen Mary, whose name is upon the fort, to think of what
Virgil makes Aeneas say, on having left the country of his charming
Dido:

Invitus, regina, tuo de littare cessi. [Footnote: Unhappy queen!
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state. DRYDEN]

'Very well hit off!' said he.

We dined at Kinghorn, and then got into a post-chaise. Mr Nairne and
his servant, and Joseph, rode by us. We stopped at Cupar, and drank
tea. We talked of Parliament; and I said, I supposed very few of the
members knew much of what was going on, as indeed very few gentlemen
know much of their own private affairs. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, if a man
is not of a sluggish mind, he may be his own steward. If he will look
into his affairs, he will soon learn. So it is as to publick affairs.
There must always be a certain number of men of business in
Parliament.' BOSWELL. 'But consider, sir; what is the House of
Commons? Is not a great part of it chosen by peers? Do you think, sir,
they ought to have such an influence?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, sir. Influence
must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.'
BOSWELL. 'But is there not reason to fear that the common people may
be oppressed?' JOHNSON. 'No, sir. Our great fear is from want of power
in government. Such a storm of vulgar force has broke in.' BOSWELL.
'It has only roared.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it has roared, till the Judges in
Westminster Hall have been afraid to pronounce sentence in opposition
to the popular cry. You are frightened by what is no longer dangerous,
like Presbyterians by popery.' He then repeated a passage, I think, in
Butler's Remains, which ends, 'and would cry, Fire! Fire! in Noah's
flood'. [Footnote: The passage quoted by Dr Johnson is in the
Character of the Assembly-man. Butler's Remains, p. 232, edit. 1754.
'He preaches, indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails
at Popery, when the land is almost lost in Presbytery; and would cry
Fire! Fire! in Noah's flood.'

There is no reason to believe that this piece was not written by
Butler, but by Sir John Birkenhead; for Wood, in his Athenae
Oxonienses. Vol. II. p. 460. enumerates it among that gentleman's
works, and gives the following account of it:

The Assembly-man (or The Character of an Assembly-man) written 1647,
LOND. 1662-3, in three sheets in qu. The copy of it was taken from the
author by those who said they could not rob, because all was theirs;
so excised what they liked not; and so mangled and reformed it that it
was no character of an Assembly, but of themselves. At length, after
it had slept several years, the author published it, to avoid false
copies. It is also reprinted in a book entit. Wit and Loyalty Revived,
in a collection of some smart satyrs in verse and prose on the late
times. LOND. 1682, qu. said to be written by Abr. Cowley, Sir John
Birkenhead, and Hudibras, alias Sam. Butler.' For this information I
am indebted to Mr Reed, of Staple Inn.]

We had a dreary drive, in a dusky night, to St Andrews, where we
arrived late. We found a good supper at Glass's inn, and Dr Johnson
revived agreeably. He said, 'the collection called The Muses' Welcome
to King James (first of England, and sixth of Scotland), on his return
to his native kingdom, shewed that there was then abundance of
learning in Scotland; and that the conceits in that collection, with
which people find fault, were mere mode'. He added, 'we could not now
entertain a sovereign so; that Buchanan had spread the spirit of
learning amongst us, but we had lost it during the civil wars'. He did
not allow the Latin poetry of Pitcairne so much merit as has been
usually attributed to it; though he owned that one of his pieces,
which he mentioned, but which I am sorry is not specified in my notes,
was 'very well'. It is not improbable that it was the poem which Prior
has so elegantly translated.

After supper, we made a procession to Saint Leonard's College, the
landlord walking before us with a candle, and the waiter with a
lantern. That college had some time before been dissolved; and Dr
Watson, a professor here (the historian of Phillip II), had purchased
the ground, and what buildings remained. When we entered his court, it
seemed quite academical; and we found in his house very comfortable
and genteel accommodation. [Footnote: My Journal, from this day
inclusive, was read by Dr Johnson.]


Thursday, 19th August

We rose much refreshed. I had with me a map of Scotland, a Bible,
which was given me by Lord Mountstuart when we were together in Italy,
and Ogden's Sermons on Prayer. Mr Nairne introduced us to Dr Watson,
whom we found a well-informed man, of very amiable manners. Dr
Johnson, after they were acquainted, said, 'I take great delight in
him.' His daughter, a very pleasing young lady, made breakfast. Dr
Watson observed, that Glasgow University had fewer home-students,
since trade increased, as learning was rather incompatible with it.
JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, as trade is now carried on by subordinate hands,
men in trade have as much leisure as others; and now learning itself
is a trade. A man goes to a bookseller, and gets what he can. We have
done with patronage. In the infancy of learning, we find some great
man praised for it. This diffused it among others. When it becomes
general, an author leaves the great, and applies to the multitude.'
BOSWELL. 'It is a shame that authors are not now better patronized.'
JOHNSON. 'No, sir. If learning cannot support a man, if he must sit
with his hands across till somebody feeds him, it is as to him a bad
thing, and it is better as it is. With patronage, what flattery! What
falsehood! While a man is in equilibria, he throws truth among the
multitude, and lets them take it as they please: in patronage, he must
say what pleases his patron, and it is an equal chance whether that be
truth or falsehood.' WATSON. 'But is not the case now, that, instead
of flattering one person, we flatter the age?' JOHNSON. 'No, sir. The
world always lets a man tell what he thinks, his own way. I wonder
however, that so many people have written, who might have let it
alone. That people should endeavour to excel in conversation, I do not
wonder; because in conversation praise is instantly reverberated.'

We talked of change of manners. Dr Johnson observed, that our drinking
less than our ancestors was owing to the change from ale to wine. 'I
remember,' said he, 'when all the DECENT people in Lichfield got drunk
every night, and were not the worse thought of. Ale was cheap, so you
pressed strongly. When a man must bring a bottle of wine, he is not in
such haste. Smoking has gone out. To be sure, it is a shocking thing,
blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and
noses, and having the same thing done to us. Yet I cannot account, why
a thing which requires so little exertion, and yet preserves the mind
from total vacuity, should have gone out. Every man has something by
which he calms himself: beating with his feet, or so. [Footnote: Dr
Johnson used to practice this himself very much.] I remember when
people in England changed a shirt only once a week: a Pandour, when he
gets a shirt, greases it to make it last. Formerly, good tradesmen had
no fire but in the kitchen; never in the parlour, except on Sunday. My
father, who was a magistrate of Lichfield, lived thus. They never
began to have a fire in the parlour, but on leaving off business, or
some great revolution of their life.' Dr Watson said, the hall was as
a kitchen, in old squires' houses. JOHNSON. 'No, sir. The hall was for
great occasions, and never was used for domestick reflection.' We
talked of the Union, and what money it had brought into Scotland. Dr
Watson observed, that a little money formerly went as far as a great
deal now. JOHNSON. 'In speculation, it seems that a smaller quantity
of money, equal in value to a larger quantity, if equally divided,
should produce the same effect. But it is not so in reality. Many more
conveniences and elegancies are enjoyed where money is plentiful, than
where it is scarce. Perhaps a great familiarity with it, which arises
from plenty, makes us more easily part with it.'

After what Dr Johnson had said of St Andrews, which he had long wished
to see, as our oldest university, and the seat of our Primate in the
days of episcopacy, I can say little. Since the publication of Dr
Johnson's book, I find that he has been censured for not seeing here
the ancient chapel of St Rule, a curious piece of sacred architecture.
But this was neither his fault nor mine. We were both of us abundantly
desirous of surveying such sort of antiquities: but neither of us knew
of this. I am afraid the censure must fall on those who did not tell
us of it. In every place, where there is any thing worthy of
observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers,
such as we find in all the towns of Italy, and in some of the towns in
England. I was told that there is a manuscript account of St Andrews,
by Martin, secretary to Archbishop Sharp; and that one Douglas has
published a small account of it. I inquired at a bookseller's, but
could not get it. Dr Johnson's veneration for the Hierarchy is well
known. There is no wonder then, that he was affected with a strong
indignation, while he beheld the ruins of religious magnificence. I
happened to ask where John Knox was buried. Dr Johnson burst out, 'I
hope in the high-way. I have been looking at his reformations.'

It was a very fine day. Dr Johnson seemed quite wrapt up in the
contemplation of the scenes which were now presented to him. He kept
his hat off while he was upon any part of the ground where the
cathedral had stood. He said well, that 'Knox had set on a mob,
without knowing where it would end; and that differing from a man in
doctrine was no reason why you should pull his house about his ears'.
As we walked in the cloisters, there was a solemn echo, while he
talked loudly of a proper retirement from the world. Mr Nairne said,
he had an inclination to retire. I called Dr Johnson's attention to
this, that I might hear his opinion if it was right. JOHNSON. 'Yes,
when he has done his duty to society. In general, as every man is
obliged not only to "love God, but his neighbour as himself", he must
bear his part in active life; yet there are exceptions. Those who are
exceedingly scrupulous (which I do not approve, for I am no friend to
scruples), and find their scrupulosity invincible, so that they are
quite in the dark, and know not what they shall do, or those who can
not resist temptations, and find they make themselves worse by being
in the world, without making it better, may retire. I never read of a
hermit, but in imagination I kiss his feet; never of a monastery, but
I could fall on my knees, and kiss the pavement. But I think putting
young people there, who know nothing of life, nothing of retirement,
is dangerous and wicked. It is a saying as old as Hesiod,

[words in Greek] [Footnote: Let youth in deeds, in counsel man engage;
Prayer is the proper duty of old age. ]

That is a very noble line: not that young men should not pray, or old
men not give counsel, but that every season of life has its proper
duties. I have thought of retiring, and have talked of it to a friend;
but I find my vocation is rather to active life.' I said, SOME young
monks might be allowed, to shew that it is not age alone that can
retire to pious solitude; but he thought this would only shew that
they could not resist temptation.

He wanted to mount the steeples, but it could not be done. There are
no good inscriptions here. Bad Roman characters he naturally mistook
for half Gothick, half Roman. One of the steeples, which he was told
was in danger, he wished not to be taken down; 'for,' said he, 'it may
fall on some of the posterity of John Knox; and no great matter!'
Dinner was mentioned. JOHNSON. 'Ay, ay; amidst all these sorrowful
scenes, I have no objection to dinner.'

We went and looked at the castle, where Cardinal Beaton was murdered,
and then visited Principal Murison at his college, where is a good
library-room; but the principal was abundantly vain of it, for he
seriously said to Dr Johnson, 'you have not such a one in England'.

The professors entertained us with a very good dinner. Present:
Murison, Shaw, Cooke, Hill, Haddo, Watson, Flint, Brown. I observed,
that I wondered to see him eat so well, after viewing so many
sorrowful scenes of ruined religious magnificence. 'Why,' said he, 'I
am not sorry, after seeing these gentlemen; for they are not sorry.'
Murison said, all sorrow was bad, as it was murmuring against the
dispensations of Providence. JOHNSON. 'Sir, sorrow is inherent in
humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three,
but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a
better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by
reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which wear out the
past. You need not murmur, though you are sorry.' MURISON. 'But St
Paul says, "I have learnt, in whatever state I am, therewith to be
content." 'JOHNSON. 'Sir, that relates to riches and poverty; for we
see St Paul, when he had a thorn in the flesh, prayed earnestly to
have it removed; and then he could not be content.' Murison, thus
refuted, tried to be smart, and drank to Dr Johnson, 'Long may you
lecture!' Dr Johnson afterwards, speaking of his not drinking wine,
said, 'The Doctor spoke of lecturing' (looking to him). 'I give all
these lectures on water.'

He defended requiring subscription in those admitted to universities,
thus: 'As all who come into the country must obey the King, so all who
come into an university must be of the Church.'

And here I must do Dr Johnson the justice to contradict a very absurd
and ill-natured story, as to what passed at St Andrews. It has been
circulated, that, after grace was said in English, in the usual
manner, he with the greatest marks of contempt, as if he had held it
to be no grace in an university, would not sit down till he had said
grace aloud in Latin. This would have been an insult indeed to the
gentlemen who were entertaining us. But the truth was precisely thus.
In the course of conversation at dinner, Dr Johnson, in very good
humour, said, 'I should have expected to have heard a Latin grace,
among so many learned men: we had always a Latin grace at Oxford. I
believe I can repeat it.' Which he did, as giving the learned men in
one place a specimen of what was done by the learned men in another
place.

We went and saw the church, in which is Archbishop Sharp's monument. I
was struck with the same kind of feelings with which the churches of
Italy impressed me. I was much pleased, to see Dr Johnson actually in
St Andrews, of which we had talked so long. Professor Haddo was with
us this afternoon, along with Dr Watson. We looked at St Salvador's
College. The rooms for students seemed very commodious, and Dr Johnson
said, the chapel was the neatest place of worship he had seen. The key
of the library could not be found; for it seems Professor Hill, who
was out of town, had taken it with him. Dr Johnson told a joke he had
heard of a monastery abroad, where the key of the library could never
be found.

It was somewhat dispiriting, to see this ancient archiepiscopal city
now sadly deserted. We saw in one of its streets a remarkable proof of
liberal toleration; a nonjuring clergyman, strutting about in his
canonicals, with a jolly countenance and a round belly, like a
well-fed monk.

We observed two occupations united in the same person, who had hung
out two sign-posts. Upon one was, JAMES HOOD, WHITE IRON SMITH (i.e.
tin-plate worker). Upon another, THE ART OF FENCING TAUGHT, BY JAMES
HOOD. Upon this last were painted some trees, and two men fencing, one
of whom had hit the other in the eye, to shew his great dexterity; so
that the art was well taught. JOHNSON. 'Were I studying here, I should
go and take a lesson. I remember Hope, in his book on this art, says,
"the Scotch are very good fencers".'

We returned to the inn, where we had been entertained at dinner, and
drank tea in company with some of the professors, of whose civilities
I beg leave to add my humble and very grateful acknowledgement to the
honourable testimony of Dr Johnson, in his Journey.

We talked of composition, which was a favourite topick of Dr Watson's,
who first distinguished himself by lectures on rhetorick. JOHNSON. 'I
advised Chambers, and would advise every young man beginning to
compose, to do it as fast as he can, to get a habit of having his mind
to start promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve in speed
than in accuracy.' WATSON. 'I own I am for much attention to accuracy
in composing, lest one should get bad habits of doing it in a slovenly
manner.' JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, you are confounding DOING inaccurately
with the NECESSITY of doing inaccurately. A man knows when his
composition is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it.
But, if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with difficulty,
upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not compose at all, as
we do not like to do that which is not done easily; and, at any rate,
more time is consumed in a small matter than ought to be.' WATSON. 'Dr
Hugh Blair has taken a week to compose a sermon.' JOHNSON. 'Then, sir,
that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, which I am
insisting one should acquire.' WATSON. 'Blair was not composing all
the week, but only such hours as he found himself disposed for
composition.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir, unless you tell me the time he took,
you tell me nothing. If I say I took a week to walk a mile, and have
had the gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have
taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty sermons. I have
begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post that night. I
wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the life of Savage at
a sitting; but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets
in a day of translation from the French.' BOSWELL. 'We have all
observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, sir; it is wonderful how much time some people will
consume in dressing; taking up a thing and looking at it, and laying
it down, and taking it up again. Every one should get the habit of
doing it quickly. I would say to a young divine, "Here is your text;
let me see how soon you can make a sermon." Then I'd say, "Let me see
how much better you can make it." Thus I should see both his powers
and his judgement.'

We all went to Dr Watson's to supper. Miss Sharp, great grandchild of
Archbishop Sharp, was there; as was Mr Craig, the ingenious architect
of the new town of Edinburgh, and nephew of Thomson, to whom Dr
Johnson has since done so much justice, in his Lives of the Poets.

We talked of memory, and its various modes. JOHNSON. 'Memory will play
strange tricks. One sometimes loses a single word. I once lost fugaces
in the Ode Posthume, Posthume. I mentioned to him, that a worthy
gentleman of my acquaintance actually forgot his own name. JOHNSON.
'Sir. that was a morbid oblivion.'


Friday, 2Oth August

Dr Shaw, the professor of divinity, breakfasted with us. I took out my
Ogden On Prayer, and read some of it to the company. Dr Johnson
praised him. 'Abernethy,' said he, 'allows only of a physical effect
of prayer upon the mind, which may be produced many ways, as well as
by prayer; for instance, by meditation. Ogden goes farther. In truth,
we have the consent of all nations for the efficacy of prayer, whether
offered up by individuals, or by assemblies; and Revelation has told
us, it will be effectual.' I said, 'Leechman seemed to incline to
Abernethy's doctrine.' Dr Watson observed, that Leechman meant to
shew, that, even admitting no effect to be produced by prayer,
respecting the Deity, it was useful to our own minds. He had given
only a part of his system: Dr Johnson thought he should have given the
whole.

Dr Johnson enforced the strict observance of Sunday. 'It should be
different,' he observed, 'from another day. People may walk, but not
throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no
levity.'

We went and saw Colonel Nairne's garden and grotto. Here was a fine
old plane tree. Unluckily the colonel said, there was but this and
another large tree in the county. This assertion was an excellent cue
for Dr Johnson, who laughed enormously, calling to me to hear it. He
had expatiated to me on the nakedness of that part of Scotland which
he had seen. His Journey has been violently abused, for what he has
said upon this subject. But let it be considered, that, when Dr
Johnson talks of trees, he means trees of good size, such as he was
accustomed to see in England; and of these there are certainly very
few upon the EASTERN COAST of Scotland. Besides, he said, that he
meant to give only a map of the road; and let any traveller observe
how many trees, which deserve the name, he can see from the road from
Berwick to Aberdeen. Had Dr Johnson said, 'there are NO trees' upon
this line, he would have said what is colloquially true; because, by
no trees, in common speech, we mean few. When he is particular in
counting, he may be attacked. I know not how Colonel Nairne came to
say there were but TWO large trees in the county of Fife. I did not
perceive that he smiled. There are certainly not a great many; but I
could have shewn him more than two at Balmuto, from whence my
ancestors came, and which now belongs to a branch of my family.

The grotto was ingeniously constructed. In the front of it were
petrified stocks of fir, plane, and some other tree. Dr Johnson said,
'Scotland has no right to boast of this grotto: it is owing to
personal merit. I never denied personal merit to many of you.'
Professor Shaw said to me, as we walked, 'This is a wonderful man: he
is master of every subject he handles.' Dr Watson allowed him a very
strong understanding, but wondered at his total inattention to
established manners, as he came from London.

I have not preserved, in my Journal, any of the conversation which
passed between Dr Johnson and Professor Shaw; but I recollect Dr
Johnson said to me afterwards, 'I took much to Shaw.'

We left St Andrews about noon, and some miles from it observing, at
Leuchars, a church with an old tower, we stopped to look at it. The
manse, as the parsonage-house is called in Scotland, was close by. I
waited on the minister, mentioned our names, and begged he would tell
us what he knew about it. He was a very civil old man; but could only
inform us, that it was supposed to have stood eight hundred years. He
told us, there was a colony of Danes in his parish; that they had
landed at a remote period of time, and still remained a distinct
people. Dr Johnson shrewdly inquired whether they had brought women
with them. We were not satisfied as to this colony.

We saw, this day, Dundee and Aberbrothick, the last of which Dr
Johnson has celebrated in his Journey. Upon the road we talked of the
Roman Catholick faith. He mentioned (I think) Tillotson's argument
against transubstantiation; 'That we are as sure we see bread and wine
only, as that we read in the Bible the text on which that false
doctrine is founded. We have only the evidence of our senses for both.
If,' he added, 'God had never spoken figuratively, we might hold that
he speaks literally, when he says, "This is my body".' BOSWELL. 'But
what do you say, sir, to the ancient and continued tradition of the
Church upon this point?' JOHNSON. 'Tradition, sir, has no place, where
the Scriptures are plain; and tradition cannot persuade a man into a
belief of transubstantiation. Able men, indeed, have said they
believed it.'

This is an awful subject. I did not then press Dr Johnson upon it; nor
shall I now enter upon a disquisition concerning the import of those
words uttered by our Saviour,[Footnote: "Then Jesus said unto them,
verily, verily. I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of
man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." See St John's
Gospel, chap. vi. 5 3, and following verses.] which had such an effect
upon many disciples, that they 'went back, and walked no more with
him'. The Catechism and solemn office for Communion, in the Church of
England, maintain a mysterious belief in more than a mere
commemoration of the death of Christ, by partaking of the elements of
bread and wine.

Dr Johnson put me in mind, that, at St Andrews, I had defended my
profession very well, when the question had again been started,
whether a lawyer might honestly engage with the first side that offers
him a fee. 'Sir,' said I, 'it was with your arguments against Sir
William Forbes: but it was much that I could wield the arms of
Goliah.'

He said, our judges had not gone deep in the question concerning
literary property. I mentioned Lord Monboddo's opinion, that if a man
could get a work by heart, he might print it, as by such an act the
mind is exercised. JOHNSON. 'No, sir; a man's repeating it no more
makes it his property, than a man may sell a cow which he drives
home.' I said, printing an abridgement of a work was allowed, which
was only cutting the horns and tail off the cow. JOHNSON. 'No, sir;
'tis making the cow have a calf.'

About eleven at night we arrived at Montrose. We found but a sorry
inn, where I myself saw another waiter put a lump of sugar with his
fingers into Dr Johnson's lemonade, for which he called him 'Rascal!'
It put me in great glee that our landlord was an Englishman. I rallied
the Doctor upon this, and he grew quiet. Both Sir John Hawkins's and
Dr Burney's History of Musick had then been advertised. I asked if
this was not unlucky: would not they hurt one another? JOHNSON. 'No,
sir. They will do good to one another. Some will buy the one, some the
other, and compare them; and so a talk is made about a thing, and the
books are sold.'

He was angry at me for proposing to carry lemons with us to Sky, that
he might be sure to have his lemonade. 'Sir,' said he, 'I do not wish
to be thought that feeble man who cannot do without any thing. Sir, it
is very bad manners to carry provisions to any man's house, as if he
could not entertain you. To an inferior, it is oppressive; to a
superior, it is insolent.'

Having taken the liberty, this evening, to remark to Dr Johnson, that
he very often sat quite silent for a long time, even when in company
with only a single friend, which I myself had sometimes sadly
experienced, he smiled and said, 'It is true, sir. Tom Tyers' (for so
he familiarly called our ingenious friend, who, since his death, has
paid a biographical tribute to his memory) 'Tom Tyers described me the
best. He once said to me, "Sir, you are like a ghost: you never speak
till you are spoken to" [Footnote: This description of Dr Johnson,
appears to have been borrowed from Tom Jones, Book XI. chap, ii. "The
other, who like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to, readily
answered.' &c.


Saturday, 21st August

Neither the Rev. Mr Nisbet, the established minister, nor the Rev. Mr
Spooner, the episcopal minister, were in town. Before breakfast, we
went and saw the town-hall, where is a good dancing-room, and other
rooms for tea-drinking. The appearance of the town from it is very
well; but many of the houses are built with their ends to the street,
which looks awkward. When we came down from it, I met Mr Gleg, a
merchant here. He went with us to see the English chapel. It is
situated on a pretty dry spot, and there is a fine walk to it. It is
really an elegant building, both within and without. The organ is
adorned with green and gold. Dr Johnson gave a shilling extraordinary
to the clerk, saying, 'He belongs to an honest church.' I put him in
mind, that episcopals were but DISSENTERS here; they were only
TOLERATED. 'Sir,' said he, 'we are here, as Christians in Turkey.' He
afterwards went into an apothecary's shop, and ordered some medicine
for himself, and wrote the prescription in technical characters. The
boy took him for a physician.

I doubted much which road to take, whether to go by the coast, or by
Lawrence Kirk and Monboddo. I knew Lord Monboddo and Dr Johnson did
not love each other: yet I was unwilling not to visit his lordship;
and was also curious to see them together. [Footnote: There were
several points of similarity between them: learning, clearness of
head, precision of speech, and a love of research on many subjects
which people in general do not investigate. Foote paid Lord Monboddo
the compliment of saying, that he was 'an Elzevir edition of Johnson'.

It has been shrewdly observed that Foote must have meant a diminutive,
or POCKET edition.] I mentioned my doubts to Dr Johnson, who said, he
would go two miles out of his way to see Lord Monboddo. I therefore
sent Joseph forward, with the following note.

Montrose, 21 August.
My dear Lord,

Thus far I am come with Mr Samuel Johnson. We must be at Aberdeen
to-night. I know you do not admire him so much as I do; but I cannot
be in this country without making you a bow at your old place, as I do
not know if I may again have an opportunity of seeing Monboddo.
Besides, Mr Johnson says, he would go two miles out of his way to see
Lord Monboddo. I have sent forward my servant, that we may know if
your lordship be at home. I am ever, my dear lord,

Most sincerely yours,
James Boswell.

As we travelled onwards from Montrose, we had the Grampion hills in
our view, and some good land around us, but void of trees and hedges.
Dr Johnson has said ludicrously, in his Journey, that the HEDGES were
of STONE; for, instead of the verdant THORN to refresh the eye, we
found the bare WALL or DIKE intersecting the prospect. He observed,
that it was wonderful to see a country so divested, so denuded of
trees.

We stopped at Lawrence Kirk, where our great grammarian, Ruddiman, was
once schoolmaster. We respectfully remembered that excellent man and
eminent scholar, by whose labours a knowledge of the Latin language
will be preserved in Scotland, if it shall be preserved at all. Lord
Gardenston, one of our judges, collected money to raise a monument to
him at this place, which I hope will be well executed. I know my
father gave five guineas towards it. Lord Gardenston is the proprietor
of Lawrence Kirk, and has encouraged the building of a manufacturing
village, of which he is exceedingly fond, and has written a pamphlet
upon it, as if he had founded Thebes, in which, however there are many
useful precepts strongly expressed. The village seemed to be
irregularly built, some of the houses being of clay, some of brick,
and some of brick and stone. Dr Johnson observed, they thatched well
here.

I was a little acquainted with Mr Forbes, the minister of the parish.
I sent to inform him that a gentleman desired to see him. He returned
for answer, 'that he would not come to a stranger'. I then gave my
name, and he came. I remonstrated to him for not coming to a stranger;
and, by presenting him to Dr Johnson, proved to him what a stranger
might sometimes be. His Bible inculcates 'be not forgetful to
entertain strangers', and mentions the same motive. He defended
himself by saying, he had once come to a stranger who sent for him;
and he found him 'a little worth person!'

Dr Johnson insisted on stopping at the inn, as I told him that Lord
Gardenston had furnished it with a collection of books, that
travellers might have entertainment for the mind, as well as the body.
He praised the design, but wished there had been more books, and those
better chosen.

About a mile from Monboddo, where you turn off the road, Joseph was
waiting to tell us my lord expected us to dinner. We drove over a wild
moor. It rained, and the scene was somewhat dreary. Dr Johnson
repeated, with solemn emphasis, Macbeth's speech on meeting the
witches. As we travelled on, he told me, 'Sir, you got into our club
by doing what a man can do. [Footnote: This, I find, is considered as
obscure. I suppose Dr Johnson meant, that I assiduously and earnestly
recommended myself to some of the members, as in a canvass for an
election into Parliament.] Several of the members wished to keep you
out. Burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for it: but, now you
are in, none of them are sorry. Burke says, that you have so much good
humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' BOSWELL. 'They were afraid
of you, sir, as it was you who proposed me.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they knew,
that if they refused you, they'd probably never have got in another.
I'd have kept them all out. Beauclerk was very earnest for you.'
BOSWELL. 'Beauclerk has a keenness of mind which is very uncommon.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, sir; and every thing comes from him so easily. It
appears to me that I labour, when I say a good thing.' BOSWELL. 'You
are loud, sir; but it is not an effort of mind.'

Monboddo is a wretched place, wild and naked, with a poor old house;
though, if I recollect right, there are two turrets which mark an old
baron's residence. Lord Monboddo received us at his gate most
courteously; pointed to the Douglas arms upon his house, and told us
that his great-grandmother was of that family, 'In such houses,' said
he, 'our ancestors lived, who were better men than we.' 'No, no, my
lord,' said Dr Johnson. 'We are as strong as they, and a great deal
wiser.' This was an assault upon one of Lord Monboddo's capital
dogmas, and I was afraid there would have been a violent altercation
in the very close, before we got into the house. But his lordship is
distinguished not only for 'ancient metaphysicks', but for ancient
politesse, la vieille cour, and he made no reply.

His lordship was drest in a rustick suit, and wore a little round hat;
he told us, we now saw him as Farmer Burnett, and we should have his
family dinner, a farmer's dinner. He said, 'I should not have forgiven
Mr Boswell, had he not brought you here, Dr Johnson.' He produced a
very long stalk of corn, as a specimen of his crop, and said, 'You see
here the loetas segetes.' He added, that Virgil seemed to be as
enthusiastick a farmer as he, and was certainly a practical one.
JOHNSON. 'It does not always follow, my lord, that a man who has
written a good poem on an art, has practised it. Philip Miller told
me, that in Philips's "Cyder", a poem, all the precepts were just, and
indeed better than in books written for the purpose of instructing;
yet Philips had never made cyder.'

I started the subject of emigration. JOHNSON. 'To a man of mere animal
life, you can urge no argument against going to America, but that it
will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man
of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself
and his posterity for ages in barbarism.'

He and my lord spoke highly of Homer. JOHNSON. 'He had all the
learning of his age. The shield of Achilles shews a nation in war, a
nation in peace; harvest sport, nay stealing.' [Footnote: My note of
this is much too short. Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. Yet as I
have resolved that THE VERY Journal WHICH DR JOHNSON READ, shall be
presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in any
considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word to
complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation in the
writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuine Journal.
One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect
passage above has probably been as follows: 'In his book we have an
accurate display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the
peasant is delineated as truly as the general; nay, even
harvest-sport, and the modes of ancient theft are described.']
MONBODDO. 'Ay, and what we' (looking to me)?'would call a
parliament-house scene; a cause pleaded.' JOHNSON. 'That is part of
the life of a nation in peace. And there are in Homer such characters
of heroes, and combinations of qualities of heroes, that the united
powers of mankind ever since have not produced any but what are to be
found there.' MONBODDO. 'Yet no character is described.' JOHNSON. 'No;
they all develope themselves. Agamemnon is always a gentleman-like
character; he has always <Greek>. That the ancients held so, is plain
from this; that Euripides, in his Hecuba, makes him the person to
interpose.' [Footnote: Dr Johnson modestly said, he had not read Homer
so much as he wished he had done. But this conversation shews how well
he was acquainted with the Moeonian bard; and he has shewn it still
more in his criticism upon Pope's Homer, in his Life of that poet. My
excellent friend, Mr Langton, told me, he was once present at a
dispute between Dr Johnson and Mr Burke, on the comparative merits of
Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on
both sides. Dr Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer.] MONBODDO.
'The history of manners is the most valuable. I never set a high value
on any other history.' JOHNSON. 'Nor I; and therefore I esteem
biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn
to use.' BOSWELL. 'But in the course of general history, we find
manners. In wars, we see the dispositions of people, their degrees of
humanity, and other particulars.' JOHNSON. 'Yes; but then you must
take all the facts to get this; and it is but a little you get.'
MONBODDO. 'And it is that little which makes history valuable.' Bravo!
thought I; they agree like two brothers. MONBODDO. 'I am sorry, Dr
Johnson, you were not longer at Edinburgh, to receive the homage of
our men of learning.' JOHNSON. 'My lord, I received great respect and
great kindness.' BOSWELL. 'He goes back to Edinburgh after our tour.'
We talked of the decrease of learning in Scotland, and the Muses'
Welcome. JOHNSON. 'Learning is much decreased in England, in my
remembrance.' MONBODDO. 'You, sir, have lived to see its decrease in
England, I its extinction in Scotland.' However, I brought him to
confess that the High School of Edinburgh did well. JOHNSON. 'Learning
has decreased in England, because learning will not do so much for a
man as formerly. There are other ways of getting preferment. Few
bishops are now made for their learning. To be a bishop, a man must be
learned in a learned age, factious in a factious age; but always of
eminence. Warburton is an exception; though his learning alone did not
raise him. He was first an antagonist to Pope, and helped Theobald to
publish his Shakspeare; but, seeing Pope the rising man, when Crousaz
attacked his Essay on Man, for some faults which it has, and some
which it has not, Warburton defended it in the Review of that time.
This brought him acquainted with Pope, and he gained his friendship.
Pope introduced him to Allen, Allen married him to his niece: so, by
Allen's interest and his own, he was made a bishop. But then his
learning was the sine qua non: he knew how to make the most of it; but
I do not find by any dishonest means.' MONBODDO. 'He is a great man.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes; he has great knowledge, great power of mind. Hardly any
man brings greater variety of learning to bear upon his point.'
MONBODDO. 'He is one of the greatest lights of your church.' JOHNSON.
'Why, we are not so sure of his being very friendly to us. He blazes,
if you will, but that is not always the steadiest light. Lowth is
another bishop who has risen by his learning.'

Dr Johnson examined young Arthur, Lord Monboddo's son, in Latin. He
answered very well; upon which he said, with complacency, 'Get you
gone! When King James comes back, [Footnote: I find, some doubt has
been entertained concerning Dr Johnson's meaning here. It is to be
supposed that he meant, 'when a king shall again be entertained in
Scotland'.] you shall be in the "Muses' Welcome"!' My lord and Dr
Johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the London shopkeeper
had the best existence; his lordship, as usual, preferring the savage.
My lord was extremely hospitable, and I saw both Dr Johnson and him
liking each other better every hour.

Dr Johnson having retired for a short time, his lordship spoke of his
conversation as I could have wished. Dr Johnson had said, 'I have done
greater feats with my knife than this;' though he had eaten a very
hearty dinner. My lord, who affects or believes he follows an
abstemious system, seemed struck with Dr Johnson's manner of living. I
had a particular satisfaction in being under the roof of Monboddo, my
lord being my father's old friend, and having been always very good to
me. We were cordial together. He asked Dr Johnson and me to stay all
night. When I said we must be at Aberdeen, he replied, 'Well, I am
like the Romans: I shall say to you, "Happy to come--happy to
depart!"' He thanked Dr Johnson for his visit. JOHNSON. 'I little
thought, when I had the honour to meet your lordship in London, that I
should see you at Monboddo.' After dinner, as the ladies were going
away, Dr Johnson would stand up. He insisted that politeness was of
great consequence in society. 'It is,' said he, 'fictitious
benevolence. It supplies the place of it amongst those who see each
other only in publick, or but little. Depend upon it, the want of it
never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other. I have
always applied to good breeding, what Addison in his Cato says of
honour:

  Honour's a sacred tie; the law of Kings;
  The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,
  That aids and strengthens Virtue where it meets her.
  And imitates her actions where she is not.

When he took up his large oak stick, he said, 'My lord, that's
Homerick;' thus pleasantly alluding to his lordship's favourite
writer.

Gory, my lord's black servant, was sent as our guide, to conduct us to
the high road. The circumstance of each of them having a black servant
was another point of similarity between Johnson and Monboddo. I
observed how curious it was to see an African in the north of
Scotland, with little or no difference of manners from those of the
natives. Dr Johnson laughed to see Gory and Joseph riding together
most cordially. 'Those two fellows,' said he, 'one from Africa, the
other from Bohemia, seem quite at home.' He was much pleased with Lord
Monboddo to-day. He said, he would have pardoned him for a few
paradoxes, when he found he had so much that was good: but that, from
his appearance in London, he thought him all paradox; which would not
do. He observed, that his lordship had talked no paradoxes to-day.
'And as to the savage and the London shopkeeper," said he, 'I don't
know but I might have taken the side of the savage equally, had any
body else taken the side of the shopkeeper.' He had said to my lord,
in opposition to the value of the savage's courage, that it was owing
to his limited power of thinking, and repeated Pope's verses, in which
'Macedonia's madman' is introduced, and the conclusion is,

  Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose.

I objected to the last phrase, as being low. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is
intended to be low: it is satire. The expression is debased, to debase
the character.'

When Gory was about to part from us, Dr Johnson called to him, 'Mr
Gory, give me leave to ask you a question! Are you baptized?' Gory
told him he was, and confirmed by the Bishop of Durham. He then gave
him a shilling.

We had tedious driving this afternoon, and were somewhat drowsy. Last
night I was afraid Dr Johnson was beginning to faint in his
resolution; for he said, 'If we must ride much, we shall not go; and
there's an end on't.' To-day, when he talked of Sky with spirit, I
said, 'Why, sir, you seemed to me to despond yesterday. You are a
delicate Londoner; you are a maccaroni; you can't ride.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, I shall ride better than you. I was only afraid I should not
find a horse able to carry me.' I hoped then there would be no fear of
getting through our wild tour.

We came to Aberdeen at half an hour past eleven. The New Inn, we were
told, was full. This was comfortless. The waiter, however, asked if
one of our names was Boswell, and brought me a letter left at the inn:
it was from Mr Thrale, enclosing one to Dr Johnson. Finding who I was,
we were told they would contrive to lodge us by putting us for a night
into a room with two beds. The waiter said to me in the broad strong
Aberdeenshire dialect, 'I thought I knew you, by your likeness to your
father.' My father puts up at the New Inn, when on his circuit. Little
was said to-night. I was to sleep in a little press-bed in Dr
Johnson's room. I had it wheeled out into the dining-room, and there
I lay very well.


Sunday, 22d August

I sent a message to Professor Thomas Gordon, who came and breakfasted
with us. He had secured seats for us at the English chapel. We found a
respectable congregation, and an admirable organ, well played by Mr
Tait.

We walked down to the shore. Dr Johnson laughed to hear that
Cromwell's soldiers taught the Aberdeen people to make shoes and
stockings, and to plant cabbages. He asked, if weaving the plaids was
ever a domestick art in the Highlands, like spinning or knitting. They
could not inform him here. But he conjectured probably, that where
people lived so remote from each other, it was likely to be a
domestick art; as we see it was among the ancients, from Penelope. I
was sensible to-day, to an extraordinary degree, of Dr Johnson's
excellent English pronunciation. I cannot account for its striking me
more now than any other day: but it was as if new to me; and I
listened to every sentence which he spoke, as to a musical
composition. Professor Gordon gave him an account of the plan of
education in his college. Dr Johnson said, it was similar to that at
Oxford. Waller the poet's great grandson was studying here. Dr Johnson
wondered that a man should send his son so far off, when there were so
many good schools in England. He said, 'At a great school there is all
the splendour and illumination of many minds; the radiance of all is
concentrated in each, or at least reflected upon each. But we must own
that neither a dull boy, nor an idle boy, will do so well at a great
school as at a private one. For at a great school there are always
boys enough to do well easily, who are sufficient to keep up the
credit of the school; and after whipping being tried to no purpose,
the dull or idle boys are left at the end of a class, having the
appearance of going through the course, but learning nothing at all.
Such boys may do good at a private school, where constant attention is
paid to them, and they are watched. So that the question of publick or
private education is not properly a general one; but whether one or
the other is best for MY SON.'

We were told the present Mr Waller was a plain country gentleman; and
his son would be such another. I observed, a family could not expect a
poet but in a hundred generations. 'Nay,' said Dr Johnson, 'not one
family in a hundred can expect a poet in a hundred generations.' He
then repeated Dryden's celebrated lines,

Three poets in three distant ages born, &c.

and a part of a Latin translation of it done at Oxford: he did not
then say by whom.[Footnote: London, 2d May, 1778. Dr Johnson
acknowledged that he was himself the authour of the translation above
alluded to, and dictated it to me as follows:

  Quos laudet vales Graius Romanus et Anglus
  Tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis.
  Sublime ingenium Graius; Romanus habebat
  Carmen grande sonans; Anglus utrumque tulit.
  Nil majus Natura capit: clarare priores
  Quae potuere duos tertius unus habet.]

He received a card, from Sir Alexander Gordon, who had been his
acquaintance twenty years ago in London, and who, 'if forgiven for not
answering a line from him', would come in the afternoon. Dr Johnson
rejoiced to hear of him, and begged he would come and dine with us. I
was much pleased to see the kindness with which Dr Johnson received
his old friend Sir Alexander; a gentleman of good family, Lismore, but
who had not the estate. The King's College here made him Professor of
Medicine, which affords him a decent subsistence. He told us that the
value of the stockings exported from Aberdeen was, in peace, a hundred
thousand pounds; and amounted, in time of war, to one hundred and
seventy thousand pounds. Dr Johnson asked, what made the difference?
Here we had a proof of the comparative sagacity of the two professors.
Sir Alexander answered, 'Because there is more occasion for them in
war.' Professor Thomas Gordon answered, 'Because the Germans, who are
our great rivals in the manufacture of stockings, are otherwise
employed in time of war.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you have given a very good
solution.'

At dinner, Dr Johnson ate several plate-fulls of Scotch broth, with
barley and peas in it, and seemed very fond of the dish. I said, 'You
never ate it before.' JOHNSON. 'No, sir; but I don't care how soon I
eat it again.' My cousin, Miss Dallas, formerly of Inverness, was
married to Mr Riddoch, one of the ministers of the English chapel
here. He was ill, and confined to his room; but she sent us a kind
invitation to tea, which we all accepted. She was the same lively,
sensible, cheerful woman, as ever. Dr Johnson here threw out some
jokes against Scotland. He said, 'You go first to Aberdeen; then to
Enbru (the Scottish pronunciation of Edinburgh); then to Newcastle, to
be polished by the colliers; then to York; then to London.' And he
laid hold of a little girl, Stuart Dallas, niece to Mrs Riddoch, and,
representing himself as a giant, said, he would take her with him!
telling her, in a hollow voice, that he lived in a cave, and had a bed
in the rock, and she should have a bed cut opposite to it!

He thus treated the point, as to prescription of murder in Scotland.
'A jury in England would make allowance for deficiencies of evidence,
on account of lapse of time: but a general rule that a crime should
not be punished, or tried for the purpose of punishment, after twenty
years, is bad. It is cant to talk of the King's advocate delaying a
prosecution from malice. How unlikely is it the King's advocate should
have malice against persons who commit murder, or should even know
them at all. If the son of the murdered man should kill the murderer
who got off merely by prescription, I would help him to make his
escape; though, were I upon his jury, I would not acquit him. I would
not advise him to commit such an act. On the contrary, I would bid him
submit to the determination of society, because a man is bound to
submit to the inconveniences of it, as he enjoys the good: but the
young man, though politically wrong, would not be morally wrong. He
would have to say, "Here I am amongst barbarians, who not only refuse
to do justice, but encourage the greatest of all crimes. I am
therefore in a state of nature: for, so far as there is now law, it is
a state of nature: and consequently, upon the eternal and immutable
law of justice, which requires that he who sheds man's blood should
have his blood shed, I will stab the murderer of my father."' We went
to our inn, and sat quietly. Dr Johnson borrowed, at Mr Riddoch's, a
volume of Massilon's Discourses on the Psalms: but I found he read
little in it. Ogden too he sometimes took up, and glanced at; but
threw it down again. I then entered upon religious conversation. Never
did I see him in a better frame: calm, gentle, wise, holy. I said,
'Would not the same objection hold against the Trinity as against
transubstantiation?' 'Yes,' said he, 'if you take three and one in the
same sense. If you do, to be sure you cannot believe it: but the three
persons in the Godhead are Three in one sense, and One in another. We
cannot tell how; and that is the mystery!'

I spoke of the satisfaction of Christ. He said his notion was, that it
did not atone for the sins of the world; but, by satisfying divine
justice, by shewing that no less than the Son of God suffered for sin,
it shewed to men and innumerable created beings, the heinousness of
it, and therefore rendered it unnecessary for divine vengeance to be
exercised against sinners, as it otherwise must have been; that in
this way it might operate even in favour of those who had never heard
of it: as to those who did hear of it, the effect it should produce
would be repentance and piety, by impressing upon the mind a just
notion of sin: that original sin was the propensity to evil, which no
doubt was occasioned by the fall. He presented this solemn subject in
a new light to me, [Footnote: My worthy, intelligent, and candid
friend, Dr Kippis, informs me, that several divines have thus
explained the mediation of our Saviour. What Dr Johnson now delivered,
was but a temporary opinion; for he afterwards was fully convinced of
the propitiatory sacrifice, as I shall shew at large in my future
work, The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.] and rendered much more
rational and clear the doctrine of what our Saviour has done for us,
as it removed the notion of imputed righteousness in co-operating;
whereas by this view, Christ has done all already that he had to do,
or is ever to do, for mankind, by making his great satisfaction; the
consequences of which will affect each individual according to the
particular conduct of each. I would illustrate this by saying, that
Christ's satisfaction resembles a sun placed to shew light to men, so
that it depends upon themselves whether they will walk the right way
or not, which they could not have done without that sun, 'the sun of
righteousness'. There is, however, more in it than merely giving
light--'a light to lighten the Gentiles': for we are told, there is
'healing under his wings'. Dr Johnson said to me, 'Richard Baxter
commends a treatise by Grotius, De Satisfactione Christi. I have never
read it: but I intend to read it; and you may read it.' I remarked,
upon the principle now laid down, we might explain the difficult and
seemingly hard text, 'They that believe shall be saved; and they that
believe not shall be damned.' They that believe shall have such an
impression made upon their minds, as will make them act so that they
may be accepted by God.

We talked of one of our friends taking ill, for a length of time, a
hasty expression of Dr Johnson's to him, on his attempting to
prosecute a subject that had a reference to religion, beyond the
bounds within which the Doctor thought such topicks should be confined
in a mixed company. JOHNSON. 'What is to become of society, if a
friendship of twenty years is to be broken off for such a cause?' As
Bacon says,

  Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
  But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

I said, he should write expressly in support of Christianity; for
that, although a reverence for it shines through his works in several
places, that is not enough. 'You know,' said I, 'what Grotius has
done, and what Addison has done. You should do also.' He replied, 'I
hope I shall.'


Monday, 23d August

Principal Campbell, Sir Alexander Gordon, Professor Gordon, and
Professor Ross, visited us in the morning, as did Dr Gerard, who had
come six miles from the country on purpose. We went and saw the
Marischal College, [Footnote: Dr Beattie was so kindly entertained in
England, that he had not yet returned home.] and at one o'clock we
waited on the magistrates in the town hall, as they had invited us in
order to present Dr Johnson with the freedom of the town, which
Provost Jopp did with a very good grace. Dr Johnson was much pleased
with this mark of attention, and received it very politely. There was
a pretty numerous company assembled. It was striking to hear all of
them drinking?'Dr Johnson! Dr Johnson!' in the town-hall of Aberdeen,
and then to see him with his burgess-ticket, or diploma, [Footnote: Dr
Johnson's burgess-ticket was in these words:

Aberdoniae, vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo
septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium
virorum, Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, praepositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi
Young, Georgii Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie
Decani guildae, et Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi.

Quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildae praefati
burgi de Aberdeen. In deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximiae
observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti Magistratus eum amplectuntur.
Extractum per me, ALEX. CARNEGIE.] in his hat, which he wore as he
walked along the street, according to the usual custom. It gave me
great satisfaction to observe the regard, and indeed fondness too,
which every body here had for my father.

While Sir Alexander Gordon conducted Dr Johnson to old Aberdeen,
Professor Gordon and I called on Mr Riddoch, whom I found to be a
grave worthy clergyman. He observed, that, whatever might be said of
Dr Johnson while he was alive, he would, after he was dead, be looked
upon by the world with regard and astonishment, on account of his
Dictionary.

Professor Gordon and I walked over to the Old College, which Dr
Johnson had seen by this time. I stepped into the chapel, and looked
at the tomb of the founder, Archbishop Elphinston, of whom I shall
have occasion to write in my History of James IV of Scotland, the
patron of my family.

We dined at Sir Alexander Gordon's. The Provost, Professor Ross,
Professor Dunbar, Professor Thomas Gordon, were there. After dinner
came in Dr Gerard, Professor Leslie, Professor Macleod. We had little
or no conversation in the morning; now we were but barren. The
professors seemed afraid to speak.

Dr Gerard told us that an eminent printer was very intimate with
Warburton. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, he has printed some of his works, and
perhaps bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is such as
one of the professors here may have with one of the carpenters who is
repairing the college.' 'But,' said Gerard, 'I saw a letter from him
to this printer, in which he says, that the one half of the clergy of
the Church of Scotland are fanaticks, and the other half infidels.'
JOHNSON. 'Warburton has accustomed himself to write letters just as he
speaks, without thinking any more of what he throws out. When I read
Warburton first, and observed his force, and his contempt of mankind,
I thought he had driven the world before him; but I soon found that
was not the case; for Warburton, by extending his abuse, rendered it
ineffectual.'

He told me, when we were by ourselves, that he thought it very wrong
in the printer, to shew Warburton's letter, as it was raising a body
of enemies against him. He thought it foolish in Warburton to write so
to the printer; and added, 'Sir, the worst way of being intimate, is
by scribbling.' He called Warburton's Doctrine of Grace a poor
performance, and so he said was Wesley's Answer. 'Warburton,' he
observed, 'had laid himself very open. In particular, he was weak
enough to say, that, in some disorders of the imagination, people had
spoken with tongues, had spoken languages which they never knew
before; a thing as absurd as to say, that, in some disorders of the
imagination, people had been known to fly.'

I talked of the difference of genius, to try if I could engage Gerard
in a disquisition with Dr Johnson; but I did not succeed. I mentioned,
as a curious fact, that Locke had written verses. JOHNSON. 'I know of
none, sir, but a kind of exercise prefixed to Dr Sydenham's Works, in
which he has some conceits about the dropsy, in which water and
burning are united; and how Dr Sydenham removed fire by drawing off
water, contrary to the usual practice, which is to extinguish fire by
bringing water upon it. I am not sure that there is a word of all
this; but it is such kind of talk.' [Footnote: All this, as Dr Johnson
suspected at the time, was the immediate invention of his own lively
imagination; for there is not one word of it in Mr Locke's
complimentary performance. My readers will, I have no doubt, like to
be satisfied, by comparing them: and, at any rate, it may entertain
them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when a
Bachelor in Physick.

AUCTORI, IN TRACTATUM EJUS DE FEBRIBUS.

  Febriles aestus, victumque ardoribus orbem
  Flevit, non tantis par Medicina malis.
  Et post mille artes, medicae tentamina curae,
  Ardet adhuc Febris; nec velit arte regi.
  Praeda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne,
  Ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis.
  Dum quaerit medicus febris caussamque, modumque,
  Flammarum et tenebras, et sine luce faces;
  Quas tractat patitur flammas, et febre calescens,
  Corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis.
  Qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes,
  Sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi.
  Sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros;
  Dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos.
  Sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit aedes,
  Unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus.
  Fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes;
  Cum perit artificis non minus usta domus.
  Se tandem Sydenham febrisque Scholaeque furori]

We spoke of Fingal. Dr Johnson said calmly, 'If the poems were really
translated, they were certainly first written down. Let Mr Macpherson
deposite the manuscript in one of the colleges at Aberdeen, where
there are people who can judge; and, if the professors certify the
authenticity, then there will be an end of the controversy. If he does
not take this obvious and easy method, he gives the best reason to
doubt; considering too, how much is against it a priori.'

We sauntered after dinner in Sir Alexander's garden, and saw his
little grotto, which is hung with pieces of poetry written in a fair
hand. It was

  [Footnote:   Opponens, morbi quaerit, et artis opem.
  Non temere incusat tectae putedinis ignes;
  Nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit,
  Non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; Salutis
  Quae spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua
  Nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu,
  Quis ipsis major febribus ardor inest.
  Innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas,
  Et justo rapidos temperat igne focos.
  Quid febrim exstinguat; varius quid postulat usus,
  Solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet.
  Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem,
  Dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit:
  Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes,
  Praelusit busto, fit calor iste rogus.
  Jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas,
  Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum.
  Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus,
  Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus;
  Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum
  Credimus, iratam vel genuisse Stygem.
  Extorsit Lachesi cultros, Pestique venenum
  Abstulit, et tantos non sinit esse metus.
  Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere Pestem
  Credat, et antiquas ponere posse minas
  Post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto,
  Victa jacet, parvo vulnere, dira Lues.
  Aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae,
  Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit.
  Delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urant,
  Has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas
  Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque,
  Pestis qua superat cuncta, triumphus eris.
  Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus
  Te simul et mundum qui manet, ignis erit.
  J. LOCK, A. M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon.]

agreeable to observe the contentment and kindness of this quiet,
benevolent man. Professor Macleod was brother to Macleod of Talisker,
and brother-in-law to the Laird of Col. He gave me a letter to young
Col. I was weary of this day, and began to think wishfully of being
again in motion. I was uneasy to think myself too fastidious, whilst I
fancied Dr Johnson quite satisfied. But he owned to me that he was
fatigued and teased by Sir Alexander's doing too much to entertain
him. I said, it was all kindness. JOHNSON. 'True, sir: but sensation
is sensation.' BOSWELL. 'It is so: we feel pain equally from the
surgeon's probe, as from the sword of the foe.'

We visited two booksellers' shops, and could not find Arthur
Johnston's Poems. We went and sat near an hour at Mr Riddoch's. He
could not tell distinctly how much education at the college here
costs, which disgusted Dr Johnson. I had pledged myself that we should
go to the inn, and not stay supper. They pressed us, but he was
resolute. I saw Mr Riddoch did not please him. He said to me,
afterwards, 'Sir, he has no vigour in his talk.' But my friend should
have considered that he himself was not in good humour; so that it was
not easy to talk to his satisfaction. We sat contentedly at our inn.
He then became merry, and observed how little we had either heard or
said at Aberdeen: that the Aberdonians had not started a single mawkin
(the Scottish word for hare) for us to pursue.


Tuesday, 24th August

We set out about eight in the morning, and breakfasted at Ellon. The
landlady said to me, 'Is not this the great Doctor that is going about
through the country?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Ay,' said she, 'we heard of him,
I made an errand into the room on purpose to see him. There's
something great in his appearance: it is a pleasure to have such a man
in one's house; a man who does so much good. If I had thought of it, I
would have shewn him a child of mine, who has had a lump on his throat
for some time.' 'But,' said I, 'he is not a doctor of physick.' 'Is he
an oculist?' said the landlord. 'No,' said I, 'he is only a very
learned man.' LANDLORD. 'They say he is the greatest man in England,
except Lord Mansfield.' Dr Johnson was highly entertained with this,
and I do think he was pleased too. He said, 'I like the exception: to
have called me the greatest man in England, would have been an
unmeaning compliment: but the exception marked that the praise was in
earnest; and, in SCOTLAND, the exception must be LORD MANSFIELD,
or--SIR JOHN PRINGLE.'

He told me a good story of Dr Goldsmith. Graham, who wrote Telemachus,
a Masque, was sitting one night with him and Dr Johnson, and was half
drunk. He rattled away to Dr Johnson: 'You are a clever fellow, to be
sure; but you cannot write an essay like Addison, or verses like the
Rape of the Lock.' At last he said, [Footnote: I am sure I have
related this story exactly as Dr Johnson told it to me: but a friend
who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced
a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At last, sir, Graham,
having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking
to another, said DOCTOR &c. 'What effect.' Dr Johnson used to add,
'this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be
easily conceived.'] 'DOCTOR, I should be happy to see you at Eaton.'
'I shall be glad to wait on you,' answered Goldsmith. 'No,' said
Graham, ''tis not you I mean, Dr MINOR; 'tis Dr MAJOR, there.'
Goldsmith was excessively hurt by this. He afterwards spoke of it
himself. 'Graham,' said he, 'is a fellow to make one commit suicide.'

We had received a polite invitation to Slains castle. We arrived there
just at three o'clock, as the bell for dinner was ringing. Though,
from its being just on the north-east Ocean, no trees will grow here,
Lord Errol has done all that can be done. He has cultivated his fields
so as to bear rich crops of every kind, and he has made an excellent
kitchen-garden, with a hot-house. I had never seen any of the family:
but there had been a card of invitation written by the honourable
Charles Boyd, the earl's brother. We were conducted into the house,
and at the dining-room door were met by that gentleman, whom both of
us at first took to be Lord Errol; but he soon corrected our mistake.
My lord was gone to dine in the neighbourhood, at an entertainment
given by Mr Irvine of Drum. Lady Errol received us politely, and was
very attentive to us during the time of dinner. There was nobody at
table but her ladyship, Mr Boyd, and some of the children, their
governour and governess. Mr Boyd put Dr Johnson in mind of having
dined with him at Cumming the Quaker's, along with Mr Hall and Miss
Williams: this was a bond of connection between them. For me, Mr
Boyd's acquaintance with my father was enough. After dinner, Lady
Errol favoured us with a sight of her young family, whom she made
stand up in a row. There were six daughters and two sons. It was a
very pleasing sight.

Dr Johnson proposed our setting out. Mr Boyd said, he hoped we would
stay all night; his brother would be at home in the evening, and would
be very sorry if he missed us. Mr Boyd was called out of the room. I
was very desirous to stay in so comfortable a house, and I wished to
see Lord Errol. Dr Johnson, however, was right in resolving to go, if
we were not asked again, as it is best to err on the safe side in such
cases, and to be sure that one is quite welcome. To my great joy, when
Mr Boyd returned, he told Dr Johnson that it was Lady Errol who had
called him out, and said that she would never let Dr Johnson into the
house again, if he went away that night; and that she had ordered the
coach, to carry us to view a great curiosity on the coast, after which
we should see the house. We cheerfully agreed.

Mr Boyd was engaged, in 1745-6, on the same side with many unfortunate
mistaken noblemen and gentlemen. He escaped, and lay concealed for a
year in the island of Arran, the ancient territory of the Boyds. He
then went to France, and was about twenty years on the continent. He
married a French lady, and now lived very comfortably at Aberdeen, and
was much at Slains castle. He entertained us with great civility. He
had a pompousness or formal plenitude in his conversation which I did
not dislike. Dr Johnson said, there was too much elaboration in his
talk. It gave me pleasure to see him, a steady branch of the family,
setting forth all its advantages with much zeal. He told us that Lady
Errol was one of the most pious and sensible women in the island; had
a good head, and as good a heart. He said, she did not use force or
fear in educating her children. JOHNSON. 'Sir, she is wrong; I would
rather have the rod to be the general terror to all, to make them
learn, than tell a child, if you do thus or thus, you will be more
esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect
which terminates itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets
his task, and there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation, and
comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting
mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.'

During Mr Boyd's stay in Arran, he had found a chest of medical books,
left by a surgeon there, and had read them till he acquired some skill
in physick, in consequence of which he is often consulted by the poor.
There were several here waiting for him as patients. We walked round
the house till stopped by a cut made by the influx of the sea. The
house is built quite upon the shore; the windows look upon the main
ocean, and the King of Denmark is Lord Errol's nearest neighbour on
the north-east.

We got immediately into the coach, and drove to Dunbui, a rock near
the shore, quite covered with sea-fowls; then to a circular bason of
large extent, surrounded with tremendous rocks. On the quarter next
the sea, there is a high arch in the rock, which the force of the
tempest has driven out. This place is called Buchan's Buller, or the
Buller of Buchan, and the country people call it the Pot. Mr Boyd said
it was so called from the French Bouloir. It may be more simply traced
from Boiler in our own language. We walked round this monstrous
cauldron. In some places, the rock is very narrow; and on each side
there is a sea deep enough for a man of war to ride in; so that it is
somewhat horrid to move along. However, there is earth and grass upon
the rock, and a kind of road marked out by the print of feet; so that
one makes it out pretty safely: yet it alarmed me to see Dr Johnson
striding irregularly along. He insisted on taking a boat, and sailing
into the Pot. We did so. He was stout, and wonderfully alert. The
Buchan-men all shewing their teeth, and speaking with that strange
sharp accent which distinguishes them, was to me a matter of
curiosity. He was not sensible of the difference of pronunciation in
the south and north of Scotland, which I wondered at.

As the entry into the Buller is so narrow that oars cannot be used as
you go in, the method taken is to row very hard when you come near it,
and give the boat such a rapidity of motion that it glides in. Dr
Johnson observed what an effect this scene would have had, were we
entering into an unknown place. There are caves of considerable depth;
I think, one on each side. The boatmen had never entered either of
them far enough to know the size. Mr Boyd told us that it is customary
for the company at Peterhead well, to make parties, and come and dine
in one of the caves here.

He told us, that, as Slains is at a considerable distance from
Aberdeen, Lord Errol, who has a very large family, resolved to have a
surgeon of his own. With this view he educated one of his tenant's
sons, who is now settled in a very neat house and farm just by, which
we saw from the road. By the salary which the earl allows him, and the
practice which he has had, he is in very easy circumstances. He had
kept an exact account of all that had been laid out on his education,
and he came to his lordship one day, and told him that he had arrived
at a much higher situation than ever he expected; that he was now able
to repay what his lordship had advanced, and begged he would accept of
it. The earl was pleased with the generous gratitude and genteel offer
of the man; but refused it. Mr Boyd also told us, Cumming the Quaker
first began to distinguish himself, by writing against Dr Leechman on
prayer, to prove it unnecessary, as God knows best what should be, and
will order it without our asking--the old hackneyed objection.

When we returned to the house we found coffee and tea in the
drawing-room. Lady Errol was not there, being, as I supposed, engaged
with her young family. There is a bow-window fronting the sea. Dr
Johnson repeated the ode, Jam satis terris, while Mr Boyd was with his
patients. He spoke well in favour of entails, to preserve lines of men
whom mankind are accustomed to reverence. His opinion was that so much
land should be entailed as that families should never fall into
contempt, and as much left free as to give them all the advantages of
property in case of any emergency. 'If,' said he, 'the nobility are
suffered to sink into indigence, they of course become corrupt; they
are ready to do whatever the king chooses; therefore it is fit they
should be kept from becoming poor, unless it is fixed that when they
fall below a certain standard of wealth they shall lose their
peerages. We know the House of Peers have made noble stands, when the
House of Commons durst not. The two last years of Parliament they dare
not contradict the populace.'

This room is ornamented with a number of fine prints, and with a whole
length picture of Lord Errol, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This led Dr
Johnson and me to talk of our amiable and elegant friend, whose
panegyrick he concluded by saying, 'Sir Joshua Reynolds, sir, is the
most invulnerable man I know; the man with whom if you should quarrel,
you would find the most difficulty how to abuse.'

Dr Johnson observed, the situation here was the noblest he had ever
seen, better than Mount Edgecumbe, reckoned the first in England;
because, at

Mount Edgecumbe, the sea is bounded by land on the other side, and,
though there is there the grandeur of a fleet, there is also the
impression of there being a dock-yard, the circumstances of which are
not agreeable. At Slains is an excellent old house. The noble owner
has built of brick, along the square in the inside, a gallery, both on
the first and second story, the house being no higher; so that he has
always a dry walk, and the rooms, to which formerly there was no
approach but through each other, have now all separate entries from
the gallery, which is hung with Hogarth's works, and other prints. We
went and sat a while in the library. There is a valuable numerous
collection. It was chiefly made by Mr Falconer, husband to the late
Countess of Errol in her own right. This earl has added a good many
modern books.

About nine the earl came home. Captain Gordon of Park was with him.
His lordship put Dr Johnson in mind of their having dined together in
London, along with Mr Beauclerk. I was exceedingly pleased with Lord
Errol. His dignified person and agreeable countenance, with the most
unaffected affability, gave me high satisfaction. From perhaps a
weakness, or, as I rather hope, more fancy and warmth of feeling than
is quite reasonable, my mind is ever impressed with admiration for
persons of high birth, and I could, with the most perfect honesty,
expatiate on Lord Errol's good qualities; but he stands in no need of
my praise. His agreeable manners and softness of address prevented
that constraint which the idea of his being Lord High Constable of
Scotland might otherwise have occasioned. He talked very easily and
sensibly with his learned guest. I observed that Dr Johnson, though he
shewed that respect to his lordship, which, from principle, he always
does to high rank, yet, when they came to argument, maintained that
manliness which becomes the force and vigour of his understanding. To
shew external deference to our superiors, is proper: to seem to yield
to them in opinion, is meanness. [Footnote: Lord Chesterfield, in his
letters to his son, complains of one who argued in an indiscriminate
manner with men of all ranks. Probably the noble lord had felt with
some uneasiness what it was to encounter stronger abilities than his
own. If a peer will engage at foils with his inferior in station, he
must expect that his inferior in station will avail himself of every
advantage; otherwise it is not a fair trial of strength and skill. The
same will hold in a contest of reason, or of wit. A certain king
entered the lists of genius with Voltaire. The consequence was, that,
though the king had great and brilliant talents, Voltaire had such a
superiority that his majesty could not bear it; and the poet was
dismissed, or escaped, from that court. In the reign of James I of
England. Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, a peer of Scotland, from a vain
ambition to excel a fencing-master in his own art, played at rapier
and dagger with him. The fencing-master, whose fame and bread were at
stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes. Exasperated at this. Lord
Sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the fencing-master assassinated; for
which his lordship was capitally tried, condemned, and hanged. Not
being a peer of England, he was tried by the name of Robert Crichton,
Esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of three hundred years
standing. See the State Trials; and the History of England by Hume,
who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank.]
The earl said grace, both before and after supper, with much decency.
He told us a story of a man who was executed at Perth, some years ago,
for murdering a woman who was with child by him, and a former child he
had by her. His hand was cut off: he was then pulled up; but the rope
broke, and he was forced to lie an hour on the ground, till another
rope was brought from Perth, the execution being in a wood at some
distance, at the place where the murders were committed. 'There,' said
my lord, 'I see the hand of Providence.' I was really happy here. I
saw in this nobleman the best dispositions and best principles; and I
saw him, in my mind's eye, to be the representative of the ancient
Boyds of Kilmarnock. I was afraid he might have urged drinking, as, I
believe, he used formerly to do, but he drank port and water out of a
large glass himself, and let us do as we pleased. He went with us to
our rooms at night; said, he took the visit very kindly; and told me,
my father and he were very old acquaintances; that I now knew the way
to Slains, and he hoped to see me there again.

I had a most elegant room; but there was a fire in it which blazed;
and the sea, to which my windows looked, roared; and the pillows were
made of the feathers of some sea-fowl, which had to me a disgreeable
smell: so that, by all these causes, I was kept awake a good while. I
saw, in imagination, Lord Errol's father, Lord Kilmarnock (who was
beheaded on Tower Hill in 1746), and I was somewhat dreary. But the
thought did not last long, and I fell asleep.


Wednesday, 25th August

We got up between seven and eight, and found Mr Boyd in the
dining-room, with tea and coffee before him, to give us breakfast. We
were in an admirable humour. Lady Errol had given each of us a copy of
an ode by Beattie, on the birth of her son, Lord Hay. Mr Boyd asked Dr
Johnson, how he liked it. Dr Johnson, who did not admire it, got off
very well, by taking it out, and reading the second and third stanzes
of it with much melody. This, without his saying a word, pleased Mr
Boyd. He observed, however, to Dr Johnson, that the expression as to
the family of Errol,

A thousand years have seen it shine compared with what went before,

was an anticlimax, and that it would have been better

Ages have seen, etc.

Dr Johnson said, 'So great a number as a thousand is better. Dolus
latet in universalibus. Ages might be only two ages.' He talked of the
advantage of keeping up the connections of relationship, which produce
much kindness. 'Every man,' said he, 'who comes into the world, has
need of friends. If he has to get them for himself, half his life is
spent, before his merit is known. Relations are a man's ready friends
who support him. When a man is in real distress, he flies into the
arms of his relations. An old lawyer, who had much experience in
making wills, told me, that after people had deliberated long, and
thought of many for their executors, they settled at last by fixing on
their relations. This shews the universality of the principle.'

I regretted the decay of respect for men of family, and that a Nabob
now would carry an election from them. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, the Nabob
will carry it by means of his wealth, in a country where money is
highly valued, as it must be where nothing can be had without money;
but, if it comes to personal preference, the man of family will always
carry it. There is generally a scoundrelism about a low man.' Mr Boyd
said, that was a good ism.

I said, I believed mankind were happier in the ancient feudal state of
subordination, than they are in the modern state of independency.
JOHNSON. To be sure, the CHIEF was: but we must think of the number of
individuals. That THEY were less happy, seems plain; for that state
from which all escape as soon as they can, and to which none return
after they have left it, must be less happy; and this is the case with
the state of dependance on a chief or great man.'

I mentioned the happiness of the French in their subordination, by the
reciprocal benevolence and attachment between the great and those in
lower rank. Mr Boyd gave us an instance of their gentlemanly spirit.
An old Chevalier de Malthe, of ancient noblesse, but in low
circumstances, was in a coffee-house at Paris, where was Julien, the
great manufacturer at the Gobelins, of the fine tapestry, so much
distinguished both for the figures and the colours. The chevalier's
carriage was very old. Says Julien, with a plebeian insolence, 'I
think, sir, you had better have your carriage new painted.' The
chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered, 'Well,
sir. you may take it home and DYE it!' All the coffee-house rejoiced
at Julien's confusion.

We set out about nine. Dr Johnson was curious to see one of those
structures which northern antiquarians call a Druid's temple. I had a
recollection of one at Strichen; which I had seen fifteen years ago:
so we went four miles out of our road, after passing Old Deer, and
went thither. Mr Fraser, the proprietor, was at home, and shewed it to
us. But I had augmented it in my mind; for all that remains is two
stones set up on end, with a long one laid upon them, as was usual and
one stone at a little distance from them. That stone was the capital
one of the circle which surrounded what now remains. Mr Fraser was
very hospitable. [Footnote: He is the worthy son of a worthy father,
the late Lord Strichen, one of our judges, to whose kind notice I was
much obliged. Lord Strichen was a man not only honest, but highly
generous: for after his succession to the family estate, he paid a
large sum of debts contracted by his predecessor, which he was not
under any obligation to pay. Let me here, for the credit of Ayrshire,
my own county, record a noble instance of liberal honesty in William
Hutchison, drover, in Lanehead, Kyle, who formerly obtained a full
discharge from his creditors upon a composition of his debts: but upon
being restored to good circumstances, invited his creditors last
winter to a dinner, without telling the reason, and paid them their
full sums, principal and interest. They presented him with a piece of
plate, with an inscription to commemorate this extraordinary instance
of true worth; which should make some people in Scotland blush, while,
though mean themselves, they strut about under the protection of great
alliance conscious of the wretchedness of numbers who have lost by
them, to whom they never think of making reparation, but indulge
themselves and their families in most unsuitable expence.] There was a
fair at Strichen; and he had several of his neighbours from it at
dinner. One of them, Dr Fraser, who had been in the army, remembered
to have seen Dr Johnson at a lecture on experimental philosophy, at
Lichfield. The doctor recollected being at the lecture; and he was
surprised to find here somebody who knew him.

Mr Fraser sent a servant to conduct us by a short passage into the
high-road. I observed to Dr Johnson, that I had a most disagreeable
notion of the life of country gentlemen; that I left Mr Fraser just
now, as one leaves a prisoner in a jail. Dr Johnson said, that I was
right in thinking them unhappy; for that they had not enough to keep
their minds in motion.

I started a thought this afternoon which amused us a great part of the
way. 'If,' said I, 'our club should come and set up in St Andrews, as a
college, to teach all that each of us can, in the several departments
of learning and taste, we should rebuild the city: we should draw a
wonderful concourse of students.' Dr Johnson entered fully into the
spirit of this project. We immediately fell to distributing the
offices. I was to teach civil and Scotch law; Burke, politicks and
eloquence; Garrick, the art of publick speaking; Langton was to be our
Grecian, Colman our Latin professor; Nugent to teach physick; Lord
Charlemont, modern history; Beauclerk, natural philosophy; Vesey,
Irish antiquities, or Celtick learning;[Footnote: Since the first
edition, it has been suggested by one of the clubs, who knew Mr Vesey
better than Dr Johnson and I, that we did not assign him a proper
place; for he was quite unskilled in Irish antiquities and Celtick
learning, but might with propriety have been made professor of
architecture, which he understood well, and has left a very good
specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art, by an elegant house
built on a plan of his own formation, at Lucan, a few miles from
Dublin.] Jones, Oriental learning; Goldsmith, poetry and ancient
history; Chamier, commercial politicks; Reynolds, painting, and the
arts which have beauty for their object; Chambers, the law of England.
Dr Johnson at first said. 'I'll trust theology to nobody but myself.'
But, upon due consideration, that Percy is a clergyman, it was agreed
that Percy should teach practical divinity and British antiquities; Dr
Johnson himself, logick, metaphysicks and scholastick divinity. In
this manner did we amuse ourselves, each suggesting, and each varying
or adding, till the whole was adjusted. Dr Johnson said, we only
wanted a mathematician since Dyer died, who was a very good one; but
as to every thing else, we should have a very capital university,
[Footnote: Our club, originally at the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street,
then at Prince's, Sackville Street, now at Baxter's Dover Street,
which at Mr Garrick's funeral acquired a name for the first time, and
was called The Literary Club, was instituted in 1764, and now consists
of thirty-five members. It has, since 1773, been greatly augmented;
and though Dr Johnson with justice observed, that, by losing
Goldsmith, Garrick, Nugent, Chamier, Beauclerk, we had lost what would
make an eminent club, yet when I mention, as an accession, Mr Fox, Dr
George Fordyce, Sir Charles Bunbury, Lord Offory, Mr Gibbon, Dr Adam
Smith, Mr R. B. Sheridan, the Bishops of Kilaloe and St Asaph, Dean
Marlay, Mr Steevens, Mr Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr Scott of the
Commons, Earl Spencer, Mr Windham of Norfolk, Lord Elliot, Mr Malone,
Dr Joseph Warton, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Lord Lucan, Mr Burke junior,
Lord Palmerston, Dr Burney, Sir William Hamilton, and Dr Warren, it
will be acknowledged that we might establish a second university of
high reputation.]

We got at night to Banff. I sent Joseph on to Duff house: but Earl
Fife was not at home, which I regretted much, as we should have had a
very elegant reception from his lordship. We found here but an
indifferent inn. [Footnote: Here, unluckily the windows had no
pullies; and Dr Johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had
much struggling to get one of them kept open. Thus he had a notion
impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in Scotland;
in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in his
Journey. I regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book
before it was printed. I should have changed very little; but I should
have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself
open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit
or soften his assertion, that 'a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist,
who does not prefer Scotland to truth', for I really think it is not
founded; and it is harshly said.] Dr Johnson wrote a long letter to
Mrs Thrale. I wondered to see him write so much so easily. He verified
his own doctrine that 'a man may always write when he will set himself
DOGGEDLY to it'.


Thursday, 26th August

We got a fresh chaise here, a very good one, and very good horses. We
breakfasted at Cullen. They set down dried haddocks broiled, along
with our tea. I ate one; but Dr Johnson was disgusted by the sight of
them, so they were removed. Cullen has a comfortable appearance,
though but a very small town, and the houses mostly poor buildings.

I called on Mr Robertson, who has the charge of Lord Findlater's
affairs, and was formerly Lord Monboddo's clerk, was three times in
France with him, and translated Condamine's Account of the Savage
Girl, to which his lordship wrote a preface, containing several
remarks of his own. Robertson said, he did not believe so much as his
lordship did; that it was plain to him, the girl confounded what she
imagined with what she remembered: that, besides, she perceived
Condamine and Lord Monboddo forming theories, and she adapted her
story to them.

Dr Johnson said, 'It is a pity to see Lord Monboddo publish such
notions as he has done; a man of sense, and of so much elegant
learning. There would be little in a fool doing it; we should only
laugh; but when a wise man does it, we are sorry. Other people have
strange notions; but they conceal them. If they have tails, they hide
them; but Monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.' I shall
here put down some more remarks of Dr Johnson's on Lord Monboddo,
which were not made exactly at this time, but come in well from
connection. He said, he did not approve of a judge's calling himself
FARMER Burnett, [Footnote: It is the custom in Scotland for the judges
of the Court of Session to have the title of LORDS, from their
estates: thus Mr Burnett is Lord MONBODDO, as Mr Home was Lord KAMES.
There is something a little aukward in this; for they are denominated
in deeds by their NAMES, with the addition of one of the Senators of
the College of Justice'; and subscribe their Christian and surname, as
JAMES BURNETT, HENRY HOME, even in judicial acts.] and going about
with a little round hat. He laughed heartily at his lordship's saying
he was an ENTHUSIASTICAL farmer; 'for,' said he, 'what can he do in
farming by his ENTHUSIASM?' Here, however, I think Dr Johnson
mistaken. He who wishes to be successful, or happy, ought to be
enthusiastical, that is to say, very keen in all the occupations or
diversions of life. An ordinary gentleman-farmer will be satisfied
with looking at his fields once or twice a day: an enthusiastical
farmer will be constantly employed on them; will have his mind
earnestly engaged; will talk perpetually of them. But Dr Johnson has
much of the nil admirari in smaller concerns. That survey of life
which gave birth to his Vanity of Human Wishes early sobered his mind.
Besides, so great a mind as his cannot be moved by inferior objects:
an elephant does not run and skip like lesser animals.

Mr Robertson sent a servant with us, to shew us through Lord
Findlater's wood, by which our way was shortened, and we saw some part
of his domain, which is indeed admirably laid out. Dr Johnson did not
choose to walk through it. He always said, that he was not come to
Scotland to see fine places, of which there were enough in England;
but wild objects--mountains, waterfalls, peculiar manners; in short,
things which he had not seen before. I have a notion that he at no
time has had much taste for rural beauties. I have myself very little.

Dr Johnson said, there was nothing more contemptible than a country
gentleman living beyond his income, and every year growing poorer and
poorer. He spoke strongly of the influence which a man has by being
rich. 'A man,' said he, 'who keeps his money, has in reality more use
from it, than he can have by spending it.' I observed that this looked
very like a paradox; but he explained it thus: 'If it were certain
that a man would keep his money locked up for ever, to be sure he
would have no influence; but, as so many want money, and he has the
power of giving it, and they know not but by gaining his favour they
may obtain it, the rich man will always have the greatest influence.
He again who lavishes his money, is laughed at as foolish, and in a
great degree with justice, considering how much is spent from vanity.
Even those who partake of a man's hospitality, have but a transient
kindness for him. If he has not the command of money, people know he
cannot help them, if he would; whereas the rich man always can, if he
will, and for the chance of that, will have much weight.' BOSWELL.
'But philosophers and satirists have all treated a miser as
contemptible.' JOHNSON. 'He is so philosophically; but not in the
practice of life.' BOSWELL. 'Let me see now--I do not know the
instances of misers in England, so as to examine into their
influence.' JOHNSON. 'We have had few misers in England.' BOSWELL.
'There was Lowther." JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, Lowther, by keeping his
money, had the command of the county, which the family has now lost,
by spending it. [Footnote: I do not know what was at this time the
state of the parliamentary interest of the ancient family of Lowther;
a family before the Conquest: but all the nation knows it to be very
extensive at present. A due mixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy
and munificence, characterizes its present Representative.] I take it,
he lent a great deal; and that is the way to have influence, and yet
preserve one's wealth. A man may lend his money upon very good
security, and yet have his debtor much under his power.' BOSWELL. 'No
doubt, sir. He can always distress him for the money; as no man
borrows, who is able to pay on demand quite conveniently.'

We dined at Elgin, and saw the noble ruins of the cathedral. Though it
rained much, Dr Johnson examined them with a most patient attention.
He could not here feel any abhorrence at the Scottish reformers, for
he had been told by Lord Hailes, that it was destroyed before the
Reformation, by the Lord of Badenoch, [Footnote: NOTE, by Lord Hailes:
'The cathedral of Elgin was burnt by the Lord of Badenoch, because the
Bishop of Moray had pronounced an award not to his liking. The
indemnification that the see obtained, was that the Lord of Badenoch
stood for three days bare footed at the great gate of the cathedral.
The story is in the Chartulary of Elgin.'] who had a quarrel with the
bishop. The bishop's house, and those of the other clergy, which are
still pretty entire, do not seem to have been proportioned to the
magnificence of the cathedral, which has been of great extent, and had
very fine carved work. The ground within the walls of the cathedral is
employed as a burying-place. The family of Gordon have their vault
here; but it has nothing grand.

We passed Gordon Castle [Footnote: I am not sure whether the duke was
at home. But, not having the honour of being much known to his grace,
I could not have presumed to enter his castle, though to introduce
even so celebrated a stranger. We were at any rate in a hurry to get
forward to the wildness which we came to see. Perhaps, if this noble
family had still preserved that sequestered magnificence which they
maintained when Catholicks, corresponding with the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, we might have been induced to have procured proper letters of
introduction, and devoted some time to the contemplation of venerable
superstitious state.] this forenoon, which has a princely appearance.
Fochabers, the neighbouring village, is a poor place, many of the
houses being ruinous; but it is remarkable, they have in general
orchards well stored with apple-trees. Elgin has what in England are
called piazzas, that run in many places on each side of the street. It
must have been a much better place formerly. Probably it had piazzas
all along the town, as I have seen at Bologna. I approved much of such
structures in a town, on account of their conveniency in wet weather.
Dr Johnson disapproved of them, 'because,' said he, 'it makes the
under story of a house very dark, which greatly over-balances the
conveniency, when it is considered how small a part of the year it
rains; how few are usually in the street at such times; that many who
are might as well be at home; and the little that people suffer,
supposing them to be as much wet as they commonly are in walking a
street'.

We fared but ill at our inn here; and Dr Johnson said, this was the
first time he had seen a dinner in Scotland that he could not eat.

In the afternoon, we drove over the very heath where Macbeth met the
witches, according to tradition. Dr Johnson again solemnly repeated

 '"How far is't called to Fores? What are these,
  So wither'd, and so wild in their attire
  That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth.
  And yet are on't "'

He repeated a good deal more of Macbeth. His recitation was grand and
affecting, and, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to me, had no more
tone than it should have: it was the better for it. He then parodied
the 'All-hail' of the witches to Macbeth, addressing himself to me. I
had purchased some land called Dalblair; and, as in Scotland it is
customary to distinguish landed men by the name of their estates, I
had thus two titles, Dalblair and Young Auchinleck. So my friend, in
imitation of

  All hail Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

condescended to amuse himself with uttering

  All hail Dalblair! hail to thee, Laird of Auchinleck!

We got to Fores at night, and found an admirable inn, in which Dr
Johnson was pleased to meet with a landlord who styled himself
'Wine-Cooper, from London'.


Friday, 27th August

It was dark when we came to Fores last night; so we did not see what
is called King Duncan's monument. I shall now mark some gleanings of
Dr Johnson's conversation. I spoke of Leonidas, and said there were
some good passages in it. JOHNSON. 'Why, you must SEEK for them.' He
said, Paul Whitehead's Manners was a poor performance. Speaking of
Derrick, he told me he had a kindness for him, and had often said,
that if his letters had been written by one of a more established
name, they would have been thought very pretty letters.

This morning I introduced the subject of the origin of evil. JOHNSON.
'Moral evil is occasioned by free will, which implies choice between
good and evil. With all the evil that there is, there is no man but
would rather be a free agent, than a mere machine without the evil;
and what is best for each individual, must be best for the whole. If a
man would rather be the machine, I cannot argue with him. He is a
different being from me.' BOSWELL. 'A man, as a machine, may have
agreeable sensations; for instance, he may have pleasure in musick.'
JOHNSON, 'No, sir, he can not have pleasure in musick; at least no
power of producing musick; for he who can produce musick may let it
alone: he who can play upon a fiddle may break it: such a man is not a
machine.' This reasoning satisfied me. It is certain, there cannot be
a free agent, unless there is the power of being evil as well as good.
We must take the inherent possibilities of things into consideration,
in our reasonings or conjectures concerning the works of God.

We came to Nairn to breakfast. Though a county town and royal burgh,
it is a miserable place. Over the room where we sat, a girl was
spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing, an Erse song: 'I'll
warrant you,' said Dr Johnson, 'one of the songs of Ossian.' He then
repeated these lines:

'"Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound.
  All at her work the village maiden sings;
  Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around
  Revolves the sad vicissitude of things."'

I thought I had heard these lines before. JOHNSON. 'I fancy not, sir;
for they are in a detached poem, the name of which I do not remember,
written by one Giffard, a parson.'

I expected Mr Kenneth M'Aulay, the minister of Calder, who published
the history of St Kilda, a book which Dr Johnson liked, would have met
us here, as I had written to him from Aberdeen. But I received a
letter from him, telling me that he could not leave home, as he was to
administer the sacrament the following Sunday, and earnestly
requesting to see us at his manse. 'We'll go,' said Dr Johnson; which
we accordingly did. Mrs M'Aulay received us, and told us her husband
was in the church distributing tokens. [Footnote: In Scotland, there
is a great deal of preparation before administering the sacrament. The
minister of the parish examines the people as to their fitness, and to
those of whom he approves gives little pieces of tin, stamped with the
name of the parish, as TOKENS, which they must produce before
receiving it. This is a species of priestly power, and sometimes may
be abused. I remember a lawsuit brought by a person against his parish
minister, for refusing him admission to that sacred ordinance.] We
arrived between twelve and one o'clock, and it was near three before
he came to us.

Dr Johnson thanked him for his book, and said 'it was a very pretty
piece of topography'. M'Aulay did not seem much to mind the
compliment. From his conversation, Dr Johnson was persuaded that he
had not written the book which goes under his name. I myself always
suspected so; and I have been told it was written by the learned Dr
John M'Pherson of Sky, from the materials collected by M'Aulay. Dr
Johnson said privately to me, 'There is a combination in it of which
M'Aulay is not capable.' However, he was exceedingly hospitable; and,
as he obligingly promised us a route for our tour through the Western
Isles, we agreed to stay with him all night.

After dinner, we walked to the old castle of Calder (pronounced
Cawder), the Thane of Cawdor's seat. I was sorry that my friend, this
'prosperous gentleman', was not there. The old tower must be of great
antiquity. There is a draw-bridge,--what has been a moat--and an
ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden
pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the
walls have been built round it. The thickness of the walls, the small
slaunting windows, and a great iron door at the entrance on the second
story as you ascend the stairs, all indicate the rude times in which
this castle was erected. There were here some large venerable trees.

I was afraid of a quarrel between Dr Johnson and Mr M'Aulay, who
talked slightingly of the lower English clergy. The Doctor gave him a
frowning look, and said, 'This is a day of novelties: I have seen old
trees in Scotland, and I have heard the English clergy treated with
disrespect.'

I dreaded that a whole evening at Caldermanse would be heavy; however,
Mr Grant, an intelligent and well-bred minister in the neighbourhood,
was there, and assisted us by his conversation. Dr Johnson, talking of
hereditary occupations in the Highlands, said, 'There is no harm in
such a custom as this; but it is wrong to enforce it, and oblige a man
to be a taylor or a smith, because his father has been one.' This
custom, however, is not peculiar to our Highlands; it is well known
that in India a similar practice prevails.

Mr M'Aulay began a rhapsody against creeds and confessions. Dr Johnson
shewed, that 'what he called "imposition", was only a voluntary
declaration of agreement in certain articles of faith, which a church
has a right to require, just as any other society can insist on
certain rules being observed by its members. Nobody is compelled to be
of the church, as nobody is compelled to enter into a society.' This
was a very clear and just view of the subject: but, M'Aulay could not
be driven out of his track. Dr Johnson said, 'Sir, you are a BIGOT TO
LAXNESS.'

Mr M'Aulay and I laid the map of Scotland before us; and he pointed
out a rout for us from Inverness, by Fort Augustus, to Glenelg, Sky,
Mull, Icolmkill, Lorn, and Inveraray, which I wrote down. As my father
was to begin the northern circuit about the 18th of September, it was
necessary for us to make our tour with great expedition, so as to get
to Auchinleck before he set out, or to protract it, so as not to be
there till his return, which would be about the 10th of October. By
M'Aulay's calculation, we were not to land in Lorn till the 20th of
September. I thought that the interruptions by bad days, or by
occasional excursions, might make it ten days later; and I thought
too, that we might perhaps go to Benbecula, and visit Clanranald,
which would take a week of itself.

Dr Johnson went up with Mr Grant to the library, which consisted of a
tolerable collection; but the Doctor thought it rather a lady's
library, with some Latin books in it by chance, than the library of a
clergyman. It had only two of the Latin fathers, and one of the Greek
fathers in Latin. I doubted whether Dr Johnson would be present at a
Presbyterian prayer. I told Mr M'Aulay so, and said that the Doctor
might sit in the library while we were at family worship. Mr M'Aulay
said, he would omit it, rather than give Dr Johnson offence: but I
would by no means agree that an excess of politeness, even to so great
a man, should prevent what I esteem as one of the best pious
regulations. I know nothing more beneficial, more comfortable, more
agreeable, than that the little societies of each family should
regularly assemble, and unite in praise and prayer to our heavenly
Father, from whom we daily receive so much good, and may hope for more
in a higher state of existence. I mentioned to Dr Johnson the
over-delicate scrupulosity of our host. He said, he had no objection
to hear the prayer. This was a pleasing surprise to me; for he refused
to go and hear Principal Robertson preach. 'I will hear him,' said he,
'if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a
sanction, by my presence, to a Presbyterian assembly.'

Mr Grant having prayed, Dr Johnson said, his prayer was a very good
one; but objected to his not having introduced the Lord's Prayer. He
told us, that an Italian of some note in London said once to him, 'We
have in our service a prayer called the Pater Noster, which is a very
fine composition. I wonder who is the author of it.' A singular
instance of ignorance in a man of some literature and general inquiry!


Saturday, 28th August

Dr Johnson had brought a Sallust with him in his pocket from
Edinburgh. He gave it last night to Mr M'Aulay's son, a smart young
lad about eleven years old. Dr Johnson had given an account of the
education at Oxford, in all its gradations. The advantage of being
servitor to a youth of little fortune struck Mrs M'Aulay much. I
observed it aloud. Dr Johnson very handsomely and kindly said, that,
if they would send their boy to him, when he was ready for the
university, he would get him made a servitor, and perhaps would do
more for him. He could not promise to do more; but would undertake for
the servitorship. [Footnote: Dr Johnson did not neglect what he had
undertaken. By his interest with the Rev. Dr Adams, master of Pembroke
College, Oxford, where he was educated for some time, he obtained a
servitorship for young M'Aulay. But it seems he had other views; and I
believe went abroad.]

I should have mentioned that Mr White, a Welchman, who has been many
years factor (i.e. steward) on the estate of Calder, drank tea with us
last night, and upon getting a note from Mr M'Aulay, asked us to his
house. We had not time to accept of his invitation. He gave us a
letter of introduction to Mr Ferne, master of stores at Fort George.
He shewed it to me. It recommended 'two celebrated gentlemen; no less
than Dr Johnson, AUTHOR OF HIS DICTIONARY, and Mr Boswell, known at
Edinburgh by the name of Paoli'. He said, he hoped I had no objection
to what he had written; if I had, he would alter it. I thought it was
a pity to check his effusions, and acquiesced; taking care, however,
to seal the letter, that it might not appear that I had read it.

A conversation took place, about saying grace at breakfast (as we do
in Scotland) as well as at dinner and supper; in which Dr Johnson
said, 'It is enough if we have stated seasons of prayer; no matter
when. A man may as well pray when he mounts his horse, or a woman when
she milks her cow, (which Mr Grant told us is done in the Highlands),
as at meals; and custom is to be followed.' [Footnote: He could not
bear to have it thought that, in any instance whatever, the Scots are
more pious than the English. I think grace as proper at breakfast as
at any other meal. It is the pleasantest meal we have. Dr Johnson has
allowed the peculiar merit of breakfast in Scotland.]

We proceeded to Fort George. When we came into the square, I sent a
soldier with the letter to Mr Ferne. He came to us immediately, and
along with him came Major Brewse of the Engineers, pronounced BRUCE.
He said he believed it was originally the same Norman name with Bruce.
That he had dined at a house in London, where were three Bruces, one
of the Irish line, one of the Scottish line, and himself of the
English line. He said he was shewn it in the Herald's office spelt
fourteen different ways. I told him the different spellings of my
name. Dr Johnson observed, that there had been great disputes about
the spelling of Shakspear's name; at last it was thought it would be
settled by looking at the original copy of his will; but, upon
examining it, he was found to have written it himself no less than
three different ways.

Mr Ferne and Major Brewse first carried us to wait on Sir Eyre Coote,
whose regiment, the 37th, was lying here, and who then commanded the
fort. He asked us to dine with him, which we agreed to do.

Before dinner we examined the fort. The Major explained the
fortification to us, and Mr Ferne gave us an account of the stores. Dr
Johnson talked of the proportions of charcoal and salt-petre in making
gunpowder, of granulating it, and of giving it a gloss. He made a very
good figure upon these topicks. He said to me afterwards, that he had
talked OSTENTATIOUSLY. We reposed ourselves a little in Mr Ferne's
house. He had every thing in neat order as in England; and a tolerable
collection of books. I looked into Pennant's Tour in Scotland. He says
little of this fort; but that 'the barracks, &c. form several
streets'. This is aggrandizing. Mr Ferne observed, if he had said they
form a square, with a row of buildings before it, he would have given
a juster description. Dr Johnson remarked, 'how seldom descriptions
correspond with realities; and the reason is, that people do not write
them till some time after, and then their imagination has added
circumstances'.

We talked of Sir Adolphus Oughton. The Major said, he knew a great
deal for a military man. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you will find few men, of any
profession, who know more. Sir Adolphus is a very extraordinary man; a
man of boundless curiosity and unwearied diligence.'

I know not how the Major contrived to introduce the contest between
Warburton and Lowth. JOHNSON. 'Warburton kept his temper all along,
while Lowth was in a passion. Lowth published some of Warburton's
letters. Warburton drew HIM on to write some very abusive letters, and
then asked his leave to publish them; which he knew Lowth could not
refuse, after what he had done. So that Warburton contrived that he
should publish, apparently with Lowth's consent, what could not but
shew Lowth in a disadvantageous light.' [Footnote: Here Dr Johnson
gave us part of a conversation held between a Great Personage and him,
in the library at the Queen's Palace, to the course of which this
contest was considered. I have been at great pains to get that
conversation as perfectly preserved as possible. It may perhaps at
some future time be given to the publick.]

At three the drum beat for dinner. I, for a little while, fancied
myself a military man, and it pleased me. We went to Sir Eyre Coote's,
at the governour's house, and found him a most gentleman-like man. His
lady is a very agreeable woman, with an uncommonly mild and sweet tone
of voice. There was a pretty large company: Mr Ferne, Major Brewse,
and several officers. Sir Eyre had come from the East Indies by land,
through the Desarts of Arabia. He told us, the Arabs could live five
days without victuals, and subsist for three weeks on nothing else but
the blood of their camels, who could lose so much of it as would
suffice for that time, without being exhausted. He highly praised the
virtue of the Arabs; their fidelity, if they undertook to conduct any
person; and said, they would sacrifice their lives rather than let him
be robbed. Dr Johnson, who is always for maintaining the superiority
of civilized over uncivilized men, said, 'Why, sir, I can see no
superiour virtue in this. A serjeant and twelve men, who are my guard,
will die, rather than that I shall be robbed.' Colonel Pennington, of
the 37th regiment, took up the argument with a good deal of spirit and
ingenuity. PENNINGTON. 'But the soldiers are compelled to this, by
fear of punishment.' JOHNSON. 'Well, sir, the Arabs are compelled by
the fear of infamy.' PENNINGTON. 'The soldiers have the same fear of
infamy, and the fear of punishment besides; so have less virtue;
because they act less voluntarily.' Lady Coote observed very well,
that it ought to be known if there was not, among the Arabs, some
punishment for not being faithful on such occasions.

We talked of the stage. I observed, that we had not now such a company
of actors as in the last age; Wilks, Booth, &c. &c. JOHNSON. 'You
think so, because there is one who excels all the rest so much: you
compare them with Garrick, and see the deficiency. Garrick's great
distinction is his universality. He can represent all modes of life,
but that of an easy fine-bred gentleman.' PENNINGTON. 'He should give
over playing young parts.' JOHNSON. 'He does not take them now; but he
does not leave off those which he has been used to play, because he
does them better than any one else can do them. If you had generations
of actors, if they swarmed like bees, the young ones might drive off
the old. Mrs Gibber, I think, got more reputation than she deserved,
as she had a great sameness; though her expression was undoubtedly
very fine. Mrs Clive was the best player I ever saw. Mrs Pritchard was
a very good one; but she had something affected in her manner: I
imagine she had some player of the former age in her eye, which
occasioned it.'

Colonel Pennington said, Garrick sometimes failed in emphasis; as for
instance, in Hamlet,

  I will speak DAGGERS to her; but use NONE,

instead of

  I will SPEAK daggers to her; but USE none.

We had a dinner of two complete courses, variety of wines, and the
regimental band of musick playing in the square, before the window,
after it. I enjoyed this day much. We were quite easy and cheerful, Dr
Johnson said, 'I shall always remember this fort with gratitude.' I
could not help being struck with some admiration, at finding upon this
barren sandy point, such buildings, such a dinner, such company: it
was like enchantment. Dr Johnson, on the other hand, said to me more
rationally, that it did not strike HIM as any thing extraordinary;
because he knew, here was a large sum of money expended in building a
fort; here was a regiment. If there had been less than what we found,
it would have surprized him. HE looked coolly and deliberately through
all the gradations: my warm imagination jumped from the barren sands
to the splendid dinner and brilliant company, to borrow the expression
of an absurd poet,

  Without ands or ifs,
  I leapt from off the sands upon the cliffs.

The whole scene gave me a strong impression of the power and
excellence of human art.

We left the fort between six and seven o'clock: Sir Eyre Coote,
Colonel Pennington, and several more, accompanied us down stairs, and
saw us into our chaise. There could not be greater attention paid to
any visitors. Sir Eyre spoke of the hardships which Dr Johnson had
before him. BOSWELL. 'Considering what he has said of us, we must make
him feel something rough in Scotland.' Sir Eyre said to him, 'You must
change your name, sir.' BOSWELL. 'Ay, to Dr M'Gregor.'

We got safely to Inverness, and put up at Mackenzie's inn. Mr Keith,
the collector of Excise here, my old acquaintance at Ayr, who had seen
us at the fort, visited us in the evening, and engaged us to dine with
him next day, promising to breakfast with us, and take us to the
English chapel; so that we were at once commodiously arranged.

Not finding a letter here that I expected, I felt a momentary
impatience to be at home. Transient clouds darkened my imagination,
and in those clouds I saw events from which I shrunk; but a sentence
or two of the Rambler's conversation gave me firmness, and I
considered that I was upon an expedition for which I had wished for
years, and the recollection of which would be a treasure to me for
life.


Sunday, 29th August

Mr Keith breakfasted with us. Dr Johnson expatiated rather too
strongly upon the benefits derived to Scotland from the Union, and the
bad state of our people before it. I am entertained with his copious
exaggeration upon that subject; but I am uneasy when people are by,
who do not know him as well as I do, and may be apt to think him
narrow-minded. [Footnote: It is remarkable that Dr Johnson read this
gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me.] I therefore
diverted the subject.

The English chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. The
altar was a bare fir table, with a coarse stool for kneeling on,
covered with a piece of thick sail-cloth doubled, by way of cushion.
The congregation was small. Mr Tait, the clergyman, read prayers very
well, though with much of the Scotch accent. He preached on 'Love your
Enemies'. It was remarkable that, when talking of the connections
amongst men, he said, that some connected themselves with men of
distinguished talents, and since they could not equal them, tried to
deck themselves with their merit, by being their companions. The
sentence was to this purpose. It had an odd coincidence with what
might be said of my connecting myself with Dr Johnson.

After church, we walked down to the Quay. We then went to Macbeth's
castle. I had a romantick satisfaction in seeing Dr Johnson actually
in it. It perfectly corresponds with Shakspeare's description, which
Sir Joshua Reynolds has so happily illustrated, in one of his notes on
our immortal poet:

  This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
  Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
  Unto our gentle sense, &c.

Just as we came out of it, a raven perched on one of the chimney-tops,
and croaked. Then I repeated

  '... The raven himself is hoarse.
  That croaks the fatal enterance of Duncan
  Under my battlements.'

We dined at Mr Keith's. Mrs Keith was rather too attentive to Dr
Johnson, asking him many questions about his drinking only water. He
repressed that observation, by saying to me, 'You may remember that
Lady Errol took no notice of this.'

Dr Johnson has the happy art (for which I have heard my father praise
the old Earl of Aberdeen) of instructing himself, by making every man
he meets tell him something of what he knows best. He led Keith to
talk to him of the Excise in Scotland, and, in the course of
conversation, mentioned that his friend Mr Thrale, the great brewer,
paid twenty thousand pounds a year to the revenue; and that he had
four casks, each of which holds sixteen hundred barrels--above a
thousand hogsheads.

After this there was little conversation that deserves to be
remembered. I shall therefore here again glean what I have omitted on
former days. Dr Gerard, at Aberdeen, told us, that when he was in
Wales, he was shewn a valley inhabited by Danes, who still retain
their own language, and are quite a distinct people. Dr Johnson
thought it could not be true, or all the kingdom must have heard of
it. He said to me, as we travelled, 'these people, sir, that Gerard
talks of, may have somewhat of a PEREGRINITY in their dialect, which
relation has augmented to a different language'. I asked him if
peregrinity was an English word: he laughed, and said, 'No.' I told
him this was the second time that I had heard him coin a word. When
Foote broke his leg, I observed that it would make him fitter for
taking off George Faulkner as Peter Paragragh, poor George having a
wooden leg. Dr Johnson at that time said, 'George will rejoice at the
DEPEDITATION of Foote'; and when I challenged that word, laughed, and
owned he had made it, and added that he had not made above three or
four in his dictionary. [Footnote: When upon the subject of this
PEREGRINITY, he told me some particulars concerning the compilation of
his Dictionary, and concerning his throwing off Lord Chesterfield's
patronage, of which very erroneous accounts have been circulated.
These particulars, with others which he afterwards gave me--as also
his celebrated letter to lord Chesterfield, which he dictated to me--I
reserve for his Life.]

Having conducted Dr Johnson to our inn, I begged permission to leave
him for a little, that I might run about and pay some short visits to
several good people of Inverness. He said to me, 'You have all the
old-fashioned principles, good and bad.' I acknowledge I have. That of
attention to relations in the remotest degree, or to worthy persons,
in every state whom I have once known, I inherit from my father. It
gave me much satisfaction to hear every body at Inverness speak of him
with uncommon regard. Mr Keith and Mr Grant, whom we had seen at Mr
M'Aulay's, supped with us at the inn. We had roasted kid, which Dr
Johnson had never tasted before. He relished it much.


Monday, 30th August

This day we were to begin our EQUITATION, as I said; for _I_ would
needs make a word too. It is remarkable, that my noble, and to me most
constant friend, the Earl of Pembroke (who, if there is too much ease
on my part, will please to pardon what his benevolent, gay, social
intercourse, and lively correspondence, have insensibly produced) has
since hit upon the 

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