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 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 bookseller's 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, AUGUST 24.

66

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 shown 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 physic." "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

* Professor Macleod became successively Sub-Principal and Principal of King's Col lege. He was famous as a caterer for the College, his Highland connexions giving him great influence in the Western Islands. He died September 11th, 1815, aged eightyeight.-ED.

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,* "Doctor, I should be happy to see you at Eton." "I shall be glad to wait on you," answered Goldsmith. "No," said Graham, not you I mean, Doctor Minor, 'tis Doctor 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."

66

'tis

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 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 governor and governess. Mr. Boyd put Dr. Johnson in mind of having dined with him at Cumming, the Quaker's, along with a Mr. Hall and Miss Williams; this was a bond of connexion 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

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 mc 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."-BOSWELL.

+ This is explained by Johnson in a letter to Mrs. Thrale. When he was at the English church in Aberdeen he was espied by Lady Di. Middleton (daughter of the Earl of Stamford, and wife of Mr. Middleton, of Lenton), who mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Boyd, and hence the invitation to visit Slains Castle.-ED.

L

we would stay all night; his brother would be at home in the even ing, 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 see 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 of 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 in 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 he read them till he acquired some skill in physic, 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 ear the shore, quite covered with sea-fowls; then to a circular basin

On the quarter

of large extent, surrounded with tremendous rocks. 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 called so 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 showing their teeth, and speaking with that 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 boatman 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 pay 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.*

• Thomas Cumming, a merchant, distinguished for the part he took in the acquisition

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 that they should be kept from becoming poor, unless it is fixed that when they fall below a certain standard of wealth they should 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 panegyric 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 the grandeur of a fleet, there is also the impression of there being a dockyard, 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 storey, 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 awhile 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.

of Senegal in 1758. He planned the expedition, and, as he predicted, the French surrendered without a contest. "If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker," says Smollett, "let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on, according to the pacific system of the Quakers without the loss of a drop of blood on either side." ("History of England,” A. D., 1758.) "In 1745, my friend, Tom Cumming, the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition-cart." (Johnson in Boswell's "Life," 1783.) This energetic Quaker died in 1774.-ED.