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, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the fame poem. If he was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they were more in his way; becaufe he thought their fuccefs in England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but fee in them that nationality which I fhould think 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 ftratum 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 bumour, which gives an oiliness and a glofs to every other quality.

I am, I flatter myself, compleatly a citizen of the world.---In my travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home; and I fincerely love" every kindred and tongue, and people " and nation." I fubfcribe to what my late truly learned and philofophical friend Crofbie faid, that the English are better animals than the Scots; they are nearer the fun; their blood is richer, and more mellow: 'but when I humour any of them in an outrageous

and

contempt

contempt of Scotland, I fairly own I treat them as children. And thus I have, at fome moments, found myself obliged to treat even Dr. Johnson.

To Scotland however he ventured; and he returned from it in great good humour, with his prejudices much leffened, and with very grateful feelings of the hofpitality 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 mifapprehended, even to rancour, by. many of my countrymen.

To have the company of Chambers and Scott, he delayed his journey fo long, that the court of feffion, which rifes on the eleventh of Auguft, 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 fpecimen of Scottish cleanlinefs. He then drank no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made fweeter; upon which the waiter, with his

greafy

greafy fingers, lifted a lump of fugar, and put it into it. The doctor, in indignation, threw it out of the window. Scott faid, he was afraid he would have knocked the waiter down. Mr. Johnson told me, that fuch 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 fincerely that I had not alfo 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 affailed by the evening effluvia of Edinburgh. I heard a late baronet, of fome diftinction in the political world in the beginning of the prefent reign, obferve, 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 magiftrates 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 confift of many stories, in each of which a different family lives, and there being no covered sewers, the odour still continues. A zealous Scotfman would have wished Mr. Johnson to be without one of his five fenfes upon this occafion. As we marched flowly along, he grumbled in my ear, "I smell you in the dark!" But he acknowledged that the breadth of the street, and

the

the loftinefs of the buildings on each fide, 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 fitting up late, and of which his able defence against Mr, Jonas Hanway fhould have obtained him a magnificent reward from the Eaft-India Company. He fhewed much complacency, upon finding that the mistress of the house was fo attentive to his fingular habit; and as no man could be more polite when he chofe to be fo, his addrefs to her was most courteous and engaging; and his converfation foon charmed her into a forgetfulnefs of his external appearance.

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

We had, a little before this, had a trial for murder, in which the judges had allowed the lapfe of twenty years fince its commiffion as a plea in bar, in conformity with the doctrine of prescription in the civil law, which Scotland and feveral other countries in Europe have adopted. He at first disapproved of this; but then he thought there was fomething in it, if there had been for twenty years a neglect to profecute a crime which was known. He would not allow

that

that a murder, by not being difcovered for twenty years, should escape punishment. We talked

of the ancient trial by duel. He did not think it so abfurd as is generally fuppofed; "For

(faid he) it was only allowed when the quef"tion was in equilibrio, 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 fociety inftituted the "prefent mode of trial, and gave the advantage "to him who is in the right."

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

Sunday, 15th Auguft.

Mr. Scott came to breakfast, at which I introduced to Dr. Johnson, and him, my friend Sir William Forbes, now of Pitfigo; a man of whom too much good cannot be faid; who, with distinguished abilities, and application in

his