"OUR friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, is in great health and spirits; and, I do think, has a serious "resolution to visit Scotland this year. The more "attraction, however, the better; and therefore, "though I know he will be happy to meet you "there, it will forward the scheme, if, in your "answer to this, you express yourself concerning "it with that power of which you are so happily "possessed, and which may be so directed as to operate strongly upon him."

His answer to that part of my letter was quite as I could have wished. It was written with the address and persuasion of the historian of America.

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"WHEN I saw you last, you gave us some hopes that you might prevail with Mr. Johnson to make out that excursion to Scotland, with the "expectation of which we have long flattered our"selves. If he could order matters so, as to pass "some time in Edinburgh, about the close of the

summer session, and then visit some of the High"land scenes, I am confident he would be pleased "with the grand features of nature in many parts "of this country; he will meet with many persons "here who respect him, and some whom I am per"suaded he will think not unworthy of his esteem. "I wish he would make the experiment. He some"times cracks his jokes upon us; but he will find "that we can distinguish between the stabs of ma

levolence, and the rebukes of the righteous, which "are like excellent oil,* and break not the head.

* Our friend Edmund Burke, who by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from Dr. Johnson, on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my repeating, this passage to him, exclaimed, "Oil of vitriol!"

which have been thought, necessary to human happiness, is he to be surprized if another man comes and laughs at him? If he is the great man he thinks himself, all this cannot hurt him: it is like throwing pease against a rock." He added "something much too rough," both as to Mr. Hume's head and heart, which I suppress. Violence is, in my opinion, not suitable to the Christian cause. Besides, I always lived on good terms with Mr. Hume, though I have frankly told him, I was not clear that it was right in me to keep company with him. "But, (said I) how much better are you than your books?" He was cheerful, obliging, and instructive; he was charitable to the poor; and many an agreeable hour have I passed with him: I have preserved some entertaining and interesting memoirs of him, particularly when he knew himself to be dying, which I may some time or other communicate to the world. I shall not, however, extol him so very highly as Dr. Adam Smith does, who says, in a letter to Mr. Strahan the Printer (not a confidential letter to his friend, but a letter which is published* with all formality :) "Upon the whole, I have

always considered him, both in his life time "and since his death, as approaching as nearly to "the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit." Let Dr. Smith consider: Was not Mr. Hume

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* This letter, though shattered by the sharp shot of Dr. Horne of Oxford's wit, in the character of "One of the People called Chris"tians," is still prefixed to Mr. Hume's excellent History of England, like a poor invalid on the piquet guard, or like a list of quack medicines sold by the same bookseller, by whom a work of whatever mature is published; for it has no connection with his History, let it.

"am in a very great hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within an hour or two."

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He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the northern scale. But, indeed, Mr. Johnson loved all that he heard, from one whom he tells us, in his Lives of the Poets, Gray found "a poet, a philosopher, and a good man.

My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some time. The reason will appear, when we come to the isle of Sky. I shall then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself and Mr. Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own letters, as I relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is valuable belonging to others, than for their own sake.

Luckily Mr. Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers, who was about to sail for the East-Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at Newcastle, and he conducted Dr. Johnson to that town. Mr. Scott, of University College, Oxford, (now Dr. Scott, of the Commons,) accompanied him from thence to Edinburgh. With such propitious convoys did he proceed to my native city. But, lest metaphor should make it be supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he travelled in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his most favourite amusements.

Dr. Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a sincere and zealous

christian, of high church of England and monar chical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of decla, mation; but he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He wasconscious of his superiority. He loved praise when it was brought to him; but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a poet. It has been often remarked, that in his poetical pieces, which it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent, his style is easier than in his prose. There is deception in this: it is not easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may dance with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking,-in the common step, are awkward. He had a constitutional melan

choly, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some additional weight to the sterling metal of his conversation.* His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantick, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of that evil, which, it was formerly imagined, the royal touch could cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, and was become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect

Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy-pleasantry, and some truth, that "Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way: " but I admit the truth of this only on some occasions. The Messiah, played upon the Canterbury organ, is more sublime than when played upon an inferior instrument: but very slight musick will seem grand, when conveyed to the ear through that majestick medium. While therefore Dr. Johnson's sayings are read, let his manner be taken along with them. Let it however be observed, that the sayings themselves are generally great; that, though he might be an ordinary composer at times, he was for the most part a Handel.