in thinking that the Celtic name, Auchinleck, has no relation to the natural appearance of it. I believe every Celtic name of a place will be found very descriptive. Auchinleck does not signify a stony field, as he has said, but a field of flag stones; and this place has a number of rocks, which abound in strata of that kind. The "sullen dignity of the old castle," as he has forcibly expressed it, delighted him exceedingly. On one side of the rock on which its ruins stand, runs the river Lugar, which is here of considerable breadth, and is bordered by other high rocks, shaded with wood. On the other side runs a brook, skirted in the same manner, but on a smaller scale. I cannot figure a more romantic scene.

I felt myself elated here, and expatiated to my illustrious Mentor on the antiquity and honourable alliances of my family, and on the merits of its founder, Thomas Boswell, who was highly favoured by his sovereign, James IV. of Scotland, and fell with him at the battle of Flodden-field; and in the glow of what, I am sensible, will, in a commercial age, be considered as genealogical enthusiasm, did not omit to mention what I was sure my friend would not think lightly of-my relation to the royal personage, whose liberality, on his accession to the throne, had given him comfort and independence. I have, in a former page, acknowledged my pride of ancient blood, in which I was encouraged by Dr. Johnson.* My readers, therefore, will not be surprised at my having indulged it on this occasion.

Not far from the old castle is a spot of consecrated earth, on which may be traced the foundations of an ancient chapel, dedicatel to St. Vincent, and where in old times "was the place of graves" for the family. It grieves me to think that the remains of sanctity

• The "ancient blood" of our author would have boiled with indignation could he have foreseen that his grandson was to set aside the deed of entail attaching the family estate of Auchinleck to heirs male. The correspondence between Johnson and Boswell on this subject will be found in the "Life of Johnson," under date of 1773. The deed was drawn up by Lord Auchinleck, signed, tested, and placed in publica custodia, where it remained undisturbed from the year 1777 down to the summer of 1851. On examination, it was found that the deed was invalid. By the law of Scotland, confirmed by numerous decisions in the Scottish and English Courts, when a word of any importance in a deed of entail is written on an erasure, without being authenticated in the testing or prohibiting clause, the effect is fatal to the object of the deed, by rendering it improbative. The Auchinleck deed was in this position. In the clause prohibiting the right of sale, the word redeemable had at first been written instead of irredeemable. An erasure was made, and the five letters "irred" were written on this erasure, and no notice of the circumstance was contained in the testing clause. This was held by the Scottish Judges to be a fatal objection; and Sir James Boswell, the proprietor, will be entitled to sell the estate or to make a new disposition of it in order to provide for his children, who are all daughters. Thus vanishes the succession of heirs male. The blunder of a copying-clerk has annulled the deed, so anxiously concocted, that was to gratify family pride, and carry down to distant generations the name of Boswell of Auchinleck!-ED.

here, which were considerable, were dragged away, and employed in building a part of the house of Auchinleck, of the middle age; which was the family residence, till my father erected that "elegant modern mansion," of which Dr. Johnson speaks so handsomely. Perhaps this chapel may one day be restored.

Dr. Johnson was pleased when 1 showed him some venerable old trees, under the shade of which my ancestors had walked. He exhorted me to plant assiduously, as my father had done to a great extent.

As I wandered with my reverend friend in the groves of Auchinleck, I told him, that if I survived him, it was my intention to erect a monument to him here, among scenes which, in my mind, were all classical; for in my youth I had appropriated to them many of the descriptions of the Roman poets. He could not bear to have death presented to him in any shape, for his constitutional melancholy made the king of terrors more frightful. He turned off the subject, saying, "Sir, I hope to see your grandchildren!"

This forenoon he observed some cattle without horns, of which he has taken notice in his "Journey," and seems undecided whether they be of a particular race. His doubts appear to have had no foundation; for my respectable neighbour, Mr. Fairlie, who, with all his attention to agriculture, finds time both for the classics and his friends, assures me they are a distinct species, and that, when any of their calves have horns, a mixture of breed can be traced. In confirmation of his opinion, he pointed out to me the following passage in Tacitus: "Ne armentis quidem suus honor, aut gloria frontis ;” (“De Mor. Germ." § 5.) which he wondered had escaped Dr. Johnson. On the front of the house of Auchinleck is this inscription : "Quod petis, hic est ;

Est Ulubris; animus si te non deficit æquus.”

It is characteristic of the founder; but the animus æquus is, alas! not inheritable, nor the subject of devise. He always talked to me as if it were in a man's own power to attain it; but Dr. Johnson told me that he owned to him, when they were alone, his persuasion that it was in a great measure constitutional, or the effect of causes which do not depend on ourselves; and that Horace boasts too much when he says, "Equum mi animum ipse parabo."

"Anxious through seas and lands to search for rest,

Is but laborious idleness at best;

In desert Ulubra the bliss you'll find,

If you preserve a firm and equal mind."-FRANCIS S HORACE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5.

The reverend Mr. Dun, our parish minister, who had dined with us yesterday, with some other company, insisted that Dr. Johnson and I should dine with him to-day. This gave me an opportunity to show my friend the road to the church, made by my father at a great expence, for above three miles, on his own estate, through a range of well-enclosed farms, with a row of trees on each side of it. He called it the Via sacra, and was very fond of it. Dr. Johnson, though he held notions far distant from those of the Presbyterian clergy, yet could associate on good terms with them. He indeed occasionally attacked them. One of them discovered a narrowness of information concerning the dignitaries of the Church of England, among whom may be found men of the greatest learning, virtue, and piety, and of a truly apostolic character. He talked before Dr. Johnson of fat bishops and drowsy deans; and, in short, seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satirists or vulgar railers. Dr. Johnson was so highly offended, that he said to him, “Sir, you know no more of our church than a Hottentot."-I was sorry that he brought this upon himself.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6.

I cannot be certain, whether it was on this day, or a former, that Dr. Johnson and my father came in collision. If I recollect right, the contest began while my father was showing him his collection of medals; and Oliver Cromwell's coin unfortunately introduced Charles the First and Toryism. They became exceedingly warm and violent, and I was very much distressed by being present at such an altercation between two men, both of whom I reverenced; yet I durst not interfere. It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honoured father and my respected friend as intellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the public; and therefore I suppress what would, I dare say, make an interesting scene in this dramatic sketch, -this account of the transit of Johnson over the Caledonian hemisphere.

Yet I think I may, without impropriety, mention one circumstance, as an instance of my father's address. Dr. Johnson challenged him, as he did us all at Talisker, to point out any theological works of merit written by Presbyterian ministers in Scotland. My father, whose studies did not lie much in that way, owned to me afterwards, that he was somewhat at a loss how to answer, but that luckily he recollected having read in catalogues the title of "Durham on the Galatians;" upon which he boldly said, "Pray, sir, have you read

Mr. Durham's excellent Commentary on the Galatians ?""-" No, sir," said Dr. Johnson. By this lucky thought my father kept him at bay, and for some time enjoyed his triumph; but his antagonist soon made a retort, which I forbear to mention.

In the course of their altercation, Whiggism and Presbyterianism, Toryism and Episcopacy, were terribly buffetted. My worthy hereditary friend, Sir John Pringle, never having been mentioned, happily escaped without a bruise.*

My father's opinion of Dr. Johnson may be conjectured from the name he afterwards gave him, which was URSA MAJOR. But it is not true, as has been reported, that it was in consequence of my saying that he was a constellation of genius and literature. It was a sly abrupt expression to one of his brethren on the bench of the Court of Session, in which Dr. Johnson was then standing; but it was not said in his hearing.

* Sir Walter Scott contributed to Mr. Croker, for that gentleman's edition of Boswell, some traditionary notices of this quarrel. "It ended," he says, "in Johnson's pressing upon the old judge the question, what good Cromwell, of whom he had said something derogatory, had ever done to his country; when, after being much tortured, Lord Auchinleck at last spoke out: "God, doctor, he gart kings ken they had a lith in their neck"-" He taught kings they had a joint in their neck." We doubt this anecdote, which seems merely an echo of a saying by Quin, the actor, related by Davies: "On a thirtieth of January, Quin said every king in Europe would rise with a crick in his neck." The following is more characteristic: "There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," Lord Auchinleck said to a friend, "Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli-he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon ?" Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of sovereign contempt. "A dominie, mon-an auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an academy." (Croker's Boswell.) Among the topics to be avoided between the old laird and his visitor, Boswell might have included Ossian; for Lord Auchinleck seems to have been at least a partial believer in the authenticity of the Celtic Homer. He writes to Dr. Blair, 2nd October, 1764, with an account of what he considered an intrinsic proof of antiquity. "When (in Ossian) a hero finds death approaching, he calls to prepare his deer's horn; a passage which I did not understand for a good time after Fingal was published, but came then to have it explained accidentally. You must know that in Badenoch, near the church of Alves, on the highway-side, are a number of tumuli, nobody had ever taken notice of these as artificial till Macpherson of Benchar, a very sensible man, under an apprehension of their being artificial, caused to cut up two of them, and found human bones in them, and at right angles with them a red-deer's horn above them. These burials plainly have been before Christianity, for the corpse lay in the direction of north and south, not in that of east and west; and as Fingal was published before any of these tumuli were opened (which you will get attested by Benchar and the people he employed in the works), this seems to make strong for the antiquity." (Highland Society's Report, 1805.) Johnson would have treated this proof with ineffable contempt; but, fortunately, among the questiones vexata at Auchinleck, that of Ossian does not appear to have been broached. Lord Auchinleck was elevated to the bench in 1756, and died in 1782. He had a taste for the olden literature of the country, and the Auchinleck Library is famous for its collection of rare and valuable works.-E.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7.

My father and I went to public worship in our parish church, in which I regretted that Dr. Johnson would not join us; for, though we have there no form of prayer, nor magnificent solemnity, yet, as GOD is worshipped in spirit and in truth, and the same doctrines preached as in the Church of England, my friend would certainly have shown more liberality had he attended. I doubt not, however, but he employed his time in private to very good purpose. His uni. form and fervent piety was manifested on many occasions during our Tour, which I have not mentioned. His reason for not joining in Presbyterian worship has been recorded in a former page.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8.

Notwithstanding the altercation that had passed, my father, who had the dignified courtesy of an old baron, was very civil to Dr. John son, and politely attended him to the post-chaise, which was to convey us to Edinburgh.

Thus they parted. They are now in another, and a higher, state of existence; and as they were both worthy Christian men, I trust they have met in happiness. But I must observe, in justice to my friend's political principles, and my own, that they have met in a place where there is no room for Whiggism.

We came at night to a good inn at Hamilton.-I recollect no more.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9.

I wished to have shown Dr. Johnson the Duke of Hamilton's house, commonly called the Palace of Hamilton, which is close by the town.* It is an object which, having been pointed out to me as a splendid edifice from my earliest years, in travelling between Auchinleck and Edinburgh, has still great grandeur in my imagination. My friend consented to stop, and view the outside of it, but could not be persuaded to go into it.

We arrived this night at Edinburgh, after an absence of eightythree days. For five weeks together of the tempestuous season, there had been no account received of us. I cannot express how happy I was on finding myself again at home.

Hamilton Palace has since been greatly extended and improved. The additions were begun in 1822, and continued for several years at an enormous cost. The picture gallery, library, and principal apartments are on the most magnificent scale, and the structure altogether is one of the most gorgeous in the kingdom. The pictures are numerous and highly valuable, and there is a rich collection of cabinets and works of vertu.-ED.