rents on the other side, that ran in contrary direc- | part before they are men; they carry with them tions as they fell to the north or south of the little fundamental knowledge, and therefore the summit. Being, by the favour of the duke, well superstructure cannot be lofty. The grammarmounted, I went up and down the hill with great schools are not generally well supplied; for the convenience. character of a schoolmaster being there less honourable than in England, is seldom accepted by men who are capable to adorn it, and where the school has been deficient, the college can effect little.

From Glencroe we passed through a pleasant country to the banks of Loch Lomond, and were received at the house of Sir James Colquhoun, who is owner of almost all the thirty islands of the loch, which we went in a boat next morning Men bred in the universities of Scotland, canto survey. The heaviness of the rain shortened not be expected to be often decorated with the our voyage, but we landed on one island planted splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obwith yew, and stocked with deer, and on another tain a mediocrity of knowledge, between learncontaining perhaps not more than half an acre,ing and ignorance, not inadequate to the purremarkable for the ruins of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her annual nest. Had Loch Lomond been in a happier climate, it would have been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which it incloses, and to have employed upon it all the arts of embellishment. But as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns and shady thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.

Where the loch discharges itself into a river called the Leven, we passed a night with Mr. Smollett, a relation of Dr. Smollett, to whose memory he has raised an obelisk on the bank near the house in which he was born. The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat. Here we were met by a post-chaise, that conveyed us to Glasgow.

To describe a city so much frequented as Glasgow, is unnecessary. The prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many private houses, and a general appearance of wealth. It is the only episcopal city whose cathedral was left standing in the rage of reformation. It is now divided into many separate places of worship, which, taken all together, compose a great pile, that had been some centuries in building, but was never finished; for the change of religion intercepted its progress, before the cross aisle was added, which seems essential to a Gothic cathedral.

The college has not had a sufficient share of the increasing magnificence of the place. The session was begun; for it commences on the tenth of October, and continues to the tenth of June, but the students appeared not numerous, being, I suppose, not yet returned from their several homes. The division of the academical year into one session, and one recess, seems to me better accommodated to the present state of life, than that variegation of time by terms and vocations, derived from distant centuries, in which it was probably convenient, and still continued in the English universities. So many solid months as the Scotch scheme of education joins together, allow and encourage a plan for each part of the year: but with us, he that has settled himself to study in the college, is soon tempted into the country; and he that has adjusted his life in the country, is summoned back to his college.

poses of common life, which is, I believe, very widely diffused among them, and which countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious, that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous, that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way, to employment, riches, and distinc tion.

From Glasgow we directed our course to Auchinleck, an estate devolved, through long series of ancestors, to Mr. Boswell's father, the present possessor. In our way we found several places remarkable enough in themselves, but already described by those who viewed them at more leisure, or with much more skill; and stopped two days at Mr. Campbell's, a gentleman married to Mr. Boswell's sister.

Auchinleck, which signifies a stony field, seems not now to have any particular claim to its denomination. It is a district generally level, and sufficiently fertile, but, like all the western side of Scotland, incommoded by very frequent rain. It was, with the rest of the country, generally naked, till the present possessor finding, by the growth of some stately trees near his old castle, that the ground was favourable enough to timber, adorned it very diligently with annual plantations.

Lord Auchinleck, who is one of the judges of Scotland, and therefore not wholly at leisure for domestic business or pleasure, has yet found time to make improvements in his patrimony. He has built a house of hewn stone, very stately and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands with great tenderness to his tenants.

I was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion, than with the sullen dignity of the old castle. I clambered with Mr. Boswell among the ruins, which afford striking images of ancient life. It is, like other castles, built upon a point of rock, and was, I believe, anciently surrounded with a moat. There is another rock near it, to which the drawbridge, when it was let down, is said to have reached. Here, in the ages of tumult and rapine, the laird was surprised and killed by the neighbouring chief, who perhaps might have extinguished the family, had he not in a few days been seized and hanged, together with his sons, by Douglas, who came with his forces to the relief of Auchinleck.

At no great distance from the house runs a Yet when I have allowed to the universities pleasing brook, by a red rock, out of which has of Scotland a more rational distribution of time, been hewn a very agreeable and commodious I have given them, so far as my inquiries have summer-house, at less expense, as Lord Auchininformed me, all that they can claim. The stu-leck told me, than would have been required to dents for the most part, go thither boys, and de- I build a room of the same dimensions. The rock

seems to have no more dampness than any other wall. Such opportunities of variety it is judicious not to neglect.

We now returned to Edinburgh, where I passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which perhaps disclaims a pedant's praise.

The conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to the English: their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become in half a century provincial and rustic, even to themselves. The great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the English phrase, and the English pronunciation, and in splendid companies Scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an old lady.

word, or a short sentence, I think, may possibly be so distinguished.

It will be readily supposed by those that consider this subject, that Mr. Braidwood's scholars spell accurately. Orthography is vitiated among such as learn first to speak and then to write, by imperfect notions of the relation between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students every character is of equal importance; for letters are to them not symbols of names, but of things; when they write, they do not represent a sound, but delineate a form.

This school I visited, and found some of the scholars waiting for their master, whom they are said to receive at his entrance with smiling countenances and sparkling eyes, delighted with the hope of new ideas. One of the young ladies had There is one subject of philosophical curiosity her slate before her, on which I wrote a question to be found in Edinburgh, which no other city consisting of three figures, to be multiplied by has to show; a college of the deaf and dumb, two figures. She looked upon it, and quivering who are taught to speak, to read, to write, and her fingers in a manner which I thought very to practise arithmetic, by a gentleman, whose pretty, but of which I knew not whether it was name is Braidwood. The number which attends art or play, multiplied the sum regularly in two him is, I think, about twelve, which he brings lines, observing the decimal place; but did not together into a little school, and instructs accord-add the two lines together, probably disdaining ing to their several degrees of proficiency.

I do not mean to mention the instruction of the deaf as new. Having been first practised upon the son of a constable of Spain, it was afterwards cultivated with much emulation in England by Wallis and Holder, and was lately professed by Mr. Baker, who once flattered me with hopes of seeing his method published. How far any former teachers have succeeded, it is not easy to know; the improvement of Mr. Braidwood's pupils is wonderful. They not only speak, write, and understand what is written, but if he that speaks looks towards them, and modifies his organs by distinct and full utterance, they know so well what is spoken, that it is an expression scarcely figurative to say they hear with the eye. That any have attained to the power mentioned by Burnet, of feeling sounds by laying a hand on the speaker's mouth, I know not; but I have scen so much, that I can believe more; a single

so easy an operation. I pointed at the place where the sum total should stand, and she noted it with such expedition as seemed to show that she had it only to write.

It was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities capable of so much help; whatever enlarges hope, will exalt courage; after having seen the deaf taught arithmetic, who would be afraid to cultivate the Hebrides?

Such are the things which this journey has given me an opportunity of seeing, and such are the reflections which that sight has raised. Having passed my time almost wholly in cities, I may have been surprised by modes of life and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of wider survey and more varied conversation. Novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.

PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION IN 1785.

THESE Posthumous Devotions of Dr. Johnson will be, no doubt, welcomed by the public, with a distinction similar to that which has been already paid to his other Works.

That the authenticity of this work may never be called in question, the original manuscript will be deposited in the library of Pembroke College, in Oxford. Dr. Bray's associates are to receive the profits of the first edition, by the author's appointment; and any further advan tages that accrue, will be distributed among his relations.*

During many years of his life, he statedly observed certain days* with a religious solemnity; on which, and others occasions, it was his custom to compose suitable Prayers and Meditations; committing them to writing for his own I have now discharged the trust reposed in use, and, as he assured me, without any view to me by that friend, whose labours entitle him to their publication. But being last summer on a lasting gratitude and veneration from the litevisit at Oxford to the Reverend Dr. Adams, trary, and still more from the Christian world. and that gentleman urging him repeatedly to engage in some work of this kind, he then first conceived a design to revise these pious effusions, and bequeathed them, with enlargements, to the use and benefit of others.

His Lives of the English Poets "are written," as he justly hopes, "in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety." This merit may be ascribed, with equal truth, to most of his other works, and doubtless to his Infirmities, however, now growing fast upon Sermons, none of which indeed have yet been him, he at length changed this design, and de- made public, nor is it known where they are extermined to give the manuscripts, without revi- tant; though it be certain, from his own acsion, in charge to me, as I had long shared his knowledgment, both in conversation and writintimacy, and was at this time his daily attend-ing, that he composed many. As he seems ant. Accordingly, one morning, on my visiting to have turned his thoughts with peculiar earhim by desire at an early hour, he put these pa- nestness to the study of religious subjects, we pers into my hands, with instructions for com- may presume these remains would deserve to mitting them to the press, and with a promise be numbered among his happiest productions. to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany It is therefore hoped they have fallen into the them. But the performance of this promise hands of those, who will not withhold them in also was prevented, partly by his hasty destruc- obscurity, but consider them as deposits, the setion of some private memoirs, which he after- clusion of which, from general use, would be an wards lamented, and partly by that incurable injurious diminution of their author's fame, sickness, which soon ended in his dissolution. and retrenchment from the common stock of seAs a biographer, he is allowed to have ex-rious instruction.† celled without a rival; and we may justly regret that he who had so advantageously transmitted to posterity the memories of other eminent men, should have been thus prevented doing equal honour to his own. But the particulars of this venerable man's personal history may, still, in great measure, be preserved; and the public are authorized to expect them from some of his many friends, who are zealous to augment the monument of his fame by the detail of his private virtues.‡

Viz. New-Year's Day; March 29, the day on which his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, died; Good-Friday; Easter-Day; and September the 18th, his own birthday. Master of Pembroke College, at which Dr. Johnson received part of his education.

But the integrity of his mind was not only speculatively shadowed in his writings, but substantially exemplified in his life. His prayers and his alms, like those of the good Cornelius, went up for an incessant memorial; and always, from a heart deeply impressed with piety, never insensible to the calls of friendship or compassion, and prone to melt in effusions of tenderness on the slightest incitement.

When, among other articles in his Dictionary, Litchfield presents itself to his notice, he salutes that place of his nativity in these words of Vir

* The profits of the first edition were accordingly paid to Dr. Bray's associates; and those of the second have been distributed among Dr. Johnson's poor relations and connexions, all of whom are since dead, except HumSince this Preface was written the following publica-phrey Hely, who married - Ford, sister to the Rev. tions have appeared, viz. Cornelius Ford, and first cousin to our author. This poor man, who has seen better days, is now a tenant of Whicher's Almshouses, Chapel-street, Westminster.

Anecdotes of the late Dr. Johnson, during the last Twenty Years of his life, by Hester Lynch Piozzi. 3d edit. 1786, small 8vo.

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. published with his Works, by Sir John Hawkins, 8vo. 1787.

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by James Boswell, Esq. first published in 2 vols. 4to. afterwards (1793) in 3, and finally in 4 vols. 8vo.

An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. published with the 2d edition of his Works, by Arthur Murphy, Esq. Svo. 1792.

In 1788, appeared one volume, and in 1789, a second, of Sermons on different subjects, left for publication by John Taylor, LL.D, late Prebendary of Westminster, &c. published by the Rev. Samuel Hayes, A.M, Usher of Westminster School. To the second volume is added a Sermon avowedly written by Dr. Johnson, for the funeral of his wife and from internal and other evidence, the whole contents of both volumes are now generally as

cribed to the same author.

true, for the reason just mentioned, such evidences of our surviving affection may be thought ill-judged; but surely they are generous; and some natural tenderness is due even to a superstition, which thus originates in piety and benevolence.

We see our author, in one place, purposing with seriousness to remember his brother's dream; in another, owning his embarrassment from needless stipulations; and, on many occasions, noting, with a circumstantial minuteness, the process of his religious fasts. But these peculiarities, if they betray some tincture of the propensity already observed, prove, for the most part, the pious tenor of his thoughts. They indicate a mind ardently zealous to please God, and anxious to evince its alacrity in his service, by a scrupulous observance of more than enjoin ed duties.

gil, Salve, magna parens. Nor was the salutation adopted without reason; for well might he denominate his parent city great, who, by the celebrity of his name, hath for ever made it soSalve, magna parens frugum, Staffordia tellus Magna virum. VIRG. Georg. lib. ii. 173. More decisive testimonies of his affectionate sensibility are exhibited in the following work, where he bewails the successive depredations of death on his relations and friends; whose virtues, thus mournfully suggested to his recollection, he seldom omits to recite, with ardent wishes for their acquittal at the throne of mercy. In praying, however, with restriction, for these regretted tenants of the grave, he indeed conformed to a practice, which though it has been retained by other learned members of our church, her Liturgy no longer admits, and many, who adhere to her communion, avowedly But however the soundness of his principles disapprove. That such prayers are, or may be, might, in general, be apparent, he seems to have efficacious, they who sincerely offer them must lived with a perpetual conviction that his conbelieve. But may not a belief in their efficacy, duct was defective; lamenting past neglects, so far as it prevails, be attended with danger to forming purposes of future diligence, and conthose who entertain it? May it not incline stantly acknowledging their failure in the event. them to carelessness; and promote a neglect of It was natural for him, who possessed such repentance, by inducing a persuasion, that with-powers of usefulness, to consider the waste of out it, pardon may be obtained through these his time as a peculiar delinquency; with which, vicarious intercessions? Indeed the doctrine (I however, he appears to have been far less frespeak with deference to the great names that quently, and less culpably chargeable, than his have espoused it) seems inconsistent with some own tender sense of duty disposed him to appreprinciples generally allowed among us. If, hend. That he meritoriously redeemed many where the tree falleth, there it shall be; if, as Pro- days and years from indolence, is evinced by testants maintain, our state at the close of life the number and excellence of his works; not is to be the measure of our final sentence; then can we doubt that his literary exertions would prayers for the dead, being visibly fruitless, can have been still more frequent, had not morbid be regarded only as the vain oblations of super-melancholy, which, as he informs us, was the stition. But of all superstitions, this perhaps is one of the least unamiable, and most incident to a good mind. If our sensations of kindness be intense, those whom we have revered and loved during life, death which removes them from sight, cannot wholly exclude from our concern. The fondness, kindled by intercourse, will still glow from memory, and prompt us to wish, perhaps to pray, that the valued dead, to whose felicity our friendship can no longer minister, may find acceptance with Him, who giveth us, and them, richly all things to enjoy. It is * Our author informs us that his prayers for deceased friends were offered up, on several occasions, as far as might be lawful for him: and once with Preface of Permission: whence it should seem that he had some doubt concerning the lawfulness of such prayers, though it does not appear that he ever discontinued the use of them. It is also observable, that in his reflections on the death of his Wife, and again of Mr. Thrale, he wishes that the Almighty not may have, but may have had mercy on them; evidently supposing their sentence to have been already passed in the Divine Mind. This supposition, indeed, may seem not very consistent with his recommending them to the Divine Mercy afterwards. It proves, however that he had no belief in a state of Purgatory, and consequently no reason for praying for the dead, that could impeach the sincerity of his profes sion as a Protestant.

infirmity of his life, repressed them. To the prevalence of this infirmity, we may certainly ascribe that anxious fear, which seized him on the approach of his dissolution, and which his friends, who knew his integrity, observed with equal astonishment and concern. But the strength of religion at length prevailed against the frailty of nature; and his foreboding dread of the Divine Justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in the Divine Mercy.

He is now gone to await his eternal sentence; and as his life exhibited an illustrious example, so his death suggests an interesting admonition. It concerns us to reflect, that however many may find it impossible to rival his intellectual excellence, yet to imitate his virtues is both possible and necessary to all; that the current of time now hastens to plunge us in that gulf of Death, where we have so lately seen him absorbed, where there is no more place of repentance, and whence, according to our innocence or guilt, we shall rise to an immortality of bliss or torment.

Islington, August 6th 1795.

GEORGE STRAHAN.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

currence having been less frequent, their existence has been verified in fewer instances by experience. And, upon the same principle, the more remote any reported phenomenon appears to be from what we ordinarily observe in na ture, the greater, antecedently to its authentication by evidence, is its improbability.

To this Edition is added [at p. 647] a Prayer, than those that are common; because their ocnow in my possession in Dr. Johnson's own handwriting, in which he expressly supposes that Providence may permit him to enjoy the good effects of his Wife's attention and ministration by appearance, impulses, or dreams. It is well known that he admitted the credibility of apparitions and in his Rasselas, he maintains it, in the person of Imlac, by the following acute train of reasoning:

:

"That the dead are seen no more, said Imlac, I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears."

Cavillers have indeed doubted the credibility of this tale, rejecting it in every instance as the dream of delusion, or the fiction of imposture.

That many tales of apparitions have originated in delusion, and many in imposture, cannot be denied; and the whole question to be considered in this case is, how far we have authority for believing that any are founded in truth or probability.

But improbability arising from rarity of occurrence, or singularity of nature, amounts to no disproof; it is a presumptive reason of doubt too feeble to withstand the conviction induced by positive and credible testimony; such as that which has been borne to shadowy reappearances of the dead. These, as our author intimates, have been uniformly attested in every age and country by persons, who had no communication or knowledge of each other, and whose concurrence of testimony in this case can be accounted for only by a supposition of its truth. It is evidently a far greater improbability, that witnesses so numerous, so dispersed, and unconnected, should concur in forging so extraordinary a relation, than that such a relation, extraordinary as it is, should be true. For though the several objects we meet in the world be in general formed according to observably stated laws; yet anomalies in nature may occur, and their occurrence has been occasionally asserted and believed on less accumulated attes tation. We now at length have ceased to question the supernatural stature of the Patagonians; why, then, are we so unwilling to admit the more amply witnessed existence of apparitions? Because the degree of prodigiousness implied in the supposition of a visible spirit strikes the imagination as too stupendous for belief. This is the effect of measuring the credibility of the attested achievements of nature by our own narrow experience, not by the power of Him, who is the author of nature, and to whom all things, even the investing spirits with visibility, are possible. We have constant assur ance of other natural processes not less difficult to account for than this, which we contemplate with such indignant mistrust. Nor can it on Still the acknowledged millions of the dead reflection appear more surprising or incomprethat are seen no more induce a reluctance to be-hensible, that a spirit should assume a visible lieve in the reappearance of any, however attested. Common incidents, though often not less inexplicable than those which are unusual, become familiar to our observation, and soon cease to excite our wonder. But rare and preternatural occurrences astonish and shock belief by their novelty; and apparitions are by many accounted things so improbable in themselves, as not to be rendered credible by any external testimony. The same charge of insuperable incredibility has been urged against miracles; and in both cases proceeds upon a supposition, evidently erroneous, that the improbable nature of any alleged event is a stronger evidence of its falsity, than the best approved testimony can be of

Some have thought all such reported appearances liable to suspicion, because in general they seem called forth by no exigency, and calculated to administer to no end or purpose. This circumstance, so far as it may be observed, will authorize a presumption that they are not the fabrications of imposture; which has always some end, commonly a discoverable end, to promote by its illusions. At any rate, our ignorance of the purpose or end can be no disproof of the fact and the purposes of Providence, in the events most obvious to our notice, observably often elude our scrutiny.

its truth.

It is confessed that extraordinary events, when rumoured, are, till proved, less probable

Chap. xxxi

shape, than that it should animate and move a material body. The wonders we see may soften our incredulity to patience of those which we have not seen, but which all tradition attests. Nothing possible in itself, and proved by sufficient evidence, can be too prodigious for rational belief.

But even the evidence of our own senses is disputed by some reasoners, who pronounce every believed view of these unsubstantial forms to be a mere illusion of the fancy, engendered by disease, indigestion, and other bodily affections. Bodily affections, it is certain, have been known to bewilder the views of the Mind; and instances enough may be produced of men not generally supposed insane, who have been deluded and possessed with the most extravagant conceptions, by the vapours of distempered health. But by what token do these philosophers discover, that the witnesses of the fact in question, whom they never saw, and of whose