Slike strani
PDF
ePub

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 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 he only meant to give 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 shown 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

sophy in Scotland; also a discourse on prayer. He was successively Professor of Theology and Principal of the University of Glasgow. He died December 3rd, 1786, aged eighty. John Abernethy was a Dissenting minister in Ireland, born at Coleraine in 1680, died in 1740. His sermons fill six volumes, and he wrote various able theological treatises.-ED.

*Pennant in his Scottish Tour of 1769 had observed the paucity of trees in Fifeshire, "except about a gentleman's seat called Blair, where there are great and flourishing plantations." Pennant notices that a spirit for planting had become general in Scotland; and Johnson's "Journey" materially increased it.-ED.

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.

66

66

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 Catholic 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, which had such an effect upon many of his 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,

* Professor Andrew Shaw of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, died November 27, 1779-ED.

This church is chiefly Saxon in style-built apparently in the eleventh or twelfth century.—ED.

"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. 53 and following verses.-Boswell.

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 con cerning 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"

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

66

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 Music 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."

66

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 anything. 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."

66

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 ""†

SATURDAY, AUGUST 21

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 houses are built with

town from it is very well; but many of the their ends to the street, which looks awkward. When we came down from it I met Mr. Gleig, 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.

66

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

[ocr errors]

• Another Scotticism-at instead of with. This is a very common error, yet David Hume and Beattie include it in their lists of Scotticisms. Scotch, to be angry at a man; English, to be angry with a man."-Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. I.- ED.

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.-Boswell.

his lordship, and was also curious to see them together.* I mentioned my doubts to Dr. Johnson, who said he would go two miles out of his way to sce Lord Monboddo. I therefore sent Joseph forward with the following note.

Montrose, August 21.

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 Grampian 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 Gardenstone, one of our judges, collected money to raise a monument to him at this place, which I hope will

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.-BOSWELL.

[The Elzevir edition of the classics is of a diminutive, or pocket size, and Foote's meaning was obvious enough. But it may be questioned whether, as a scholar or as a member of society ever anxious to do good, Monboddo should be considered an Elzevir edition of Johnson. The eccentricities of the learned lord arose mostly out of his classical predilections. He gave suppers in imitation of the ancients, more successful than the ludicrous satire in "Peregrine Pickle;" he strewed his table and garlanded his wineflasks with roses; he anointed himself after coming from the bath; and he never would enter a carriage, because such effeminate conveyances were not in common use among the ancients, and because he considered it to be degrading to the dignity of human nature to be dragged at the tail of a horse instead of mounting his back. Hence his journeys to London were all equestrian, and he continued them beyond the age of eighty. The death of the old judge's daughter, so eminent for her beauty and her devotedness to her father, shook his stoical philosophy. A relation living in his house at the time covered the portrait of Miss Burnet with a cloth. "Right," said the old judge, stifling his emotion, "Right; and now let us turn up Herodotus!" Lord Monboddo was born in 1714, raised to the bench in 1767, and died in 1799.—ED.]

« PrejšnjaNaprej »