428

Three dangerous topicks.

[Nov. 2.

and cheerful temper. He assured me, he never had felt one moment of what is called low spirits, or uneasiness, without a real cause. He had a great many good stories, which he told uncommonly well, and he was remarkable for 'humour, incolumi gravitate',' as Lord Monboddo used to characterise it. His age, his office, and his character, had long given him an acknowledged claim to great attention, in whatever company he was; and he could ill brook any diminution of it. He was as sanguine a Whig and Presbyterian, as Dr. Johnson was a Tory and Church of England man; and as he had not much leisure to be informed of Dr. Johnson's great merits by reading his works, he had a partial and unfavourable notion of him, founded on his supposed political tenets; which were so discordant to his own, that instead of speaking of him with that respect to which he was entitled, he used to call him a Jacobite fellow. Knowing all this, I should not have ventured to bring them together, had not my father, out of kindness to me, desired me to invite Dr. Johnson to his house.

I was very anxious that all should be well; and begged of my friend to avoid three topicks, as to which they differed very widely; Whiggism, Presbyterianism, and Sir John Pringle'. He said courteously, 'I shall certainly not talk on subjects which I am told are disagreeable to a gentleman under whose roof I am; especially, I shall not do so to your father.'

Our first day went off very smoothly. It rained, and we could not get out; but my father shewed Dr. Johnson his library, which in curious editions of the Greek and Roman classicks, is, I suppose, not excelled by any private collection in Great Britain. My father had studied at Leyden, and been

Incolumi gravitate jocum tentavit.'

'Though rude his mirth, yet laboured to maintain

The solemn grandeur of the tragic scene.'

FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poet. 1. 221.

'See ante, iii. 74, and v. 10.

Nov. 3.] The Highlands and the Highlanders.

very

429

intimate with the Gronovii, and other learned men there. He was a sound scholar, and, in particular, had collated manuscripts and different editions of Anacreon, and others of the Greek Lyrick poets, with great care; so that my friend and he had much matter for conversation, without touching on the fatal topicks of difference.

Dr. Johnson found here Baxter's Anacreon', which he told me he had long enquired for in vain, and began to suspect there was no such book. Baxter was the keen antagonist of Barnes'. His life is in the Biographia Britannica3. My father has written many notes on this book, and Dr. Johnson and I talked of having it reprinted.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3.

It rained all day, and gave Dr. Johnson an impression of that incommodiousness of climate in the west, of which he has taken notice in his Journey: but, being well accommodated, and furnished with variety of books, he was not dissatisfied.

Some gentlemen of the neighbourhood came to visit my father; but there was little conversation. One of them asked Dr. Johnson how he liked the Highlands. The question seemed to irritate him, for he answered, ' How, Sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak unfavourably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained? Who

1 See ante, iv. 188, 278.

2 Johnson (Works, vii. 425) says of Addison's dedication of the opera of Rosamond to the Duchess of Marlborough, that it was an instance of servile absurdity, to be exceeded only by Joshua Barnes's dedication of a Greek Anacreon to the Duke.' For Barnes see ante, iii. 322, and iv. 23.

' William Baxter, the editor of Anacreon, was the nephew of Richard Baxter, the nonconformist divine.

4

He says of Auchinleck (Works, ix. 158) that like all the western side of Scotland, it is incommoded by very frequent rain.' 'In all September we had, according to Boswell's register, only one half of fair weather; and in October perhaps not more.' ters, i, 182,

day and a Piozzi Let

can

430

Harris a coxcomb.

[Nov. 3.

can like the Highlands'? I like the inhabitants very well'.' The gentleman asked no more questions.

Let me now make up for the present neglect, by again gleaning from the past. At Lord Monboddo's, after the conversation upon the decrease of learning in England, his Lordship mentioned Hermes, by Mr. Harris of Salisbury, as the work of a living authour, for whom he had a great respect. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we were in our post-chaise, he told me, he thought Harris'a coxcomb.' This he said of him, not as a man, but as an authour*; and I give his opinions of men and books, faithfully, whether they agree with my own or not. I do admit, that there always appeared to me something of affectation in Mr. Harris's manner of writing; something of a habit of clothing plain thoughts in analytick and categorical formality. But all his writings are imbued with learning; and all breathe that philanthropy and amiable disposition, which distinguished him as a man3.

1 'By-the-bye,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, I am far from being of the number of those angry Scotsmen who imputed to Johnson's national prejudices all or a great part of the report he has given of our country in his Voyage to the Hebrides. I remember the Highlands ten or twelve years later, and no one can conceive of how much that could have been easily remedied travellers had to complain.' Croker Corres. ii. 34.

2 Of these islands it must be confessed, that they have not many allurements but to the mere lover of naked nature. The inhabitants are thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation and penury give little pleasure.' Johnson's Works, ix. 153. In an earlier passage (p. 138), in describing a rough ride in Mull, he says:-'We were now long enough acquainted with hills and heath to have lost the emotion that they once raised, whether pleasing or painful, and had our minds employed only on our own fatigue.'

See ante, ii. 258.

* In like manner Wesley said of Rousseau :- Sure a more consummate coxcomb never saw the sun. . . . He is a cynic all over. So indeed is his brother-infidel, Voltaire; and well-nigh as great a coxcomb. Wesley's Journal, ed. 1830, iii. 386.

'This gentleman, though devoted to the study of grammar and dialecticks, was not so absorbed in it as to be without a sense of pleas

At

Nov. 4.]

Talking from books.

431

At another time, during our Tour, he drew the character of a rapacious Highland Chief' with the strength of Theophrastus or la Bruyère; concluding with these words :- Sir, he has no more the soul of a Chief, than an attorney who has twenty houses in a street, and considers how much he can make by them.'

He this day, when we were by ourselves, observed, how common it was for people to talk from books; to retail the sentiments of others, and not their own; in short, to converse without any originality of thinking. He was pleased to say, 'You and I do not talk from books".'

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4.

I was glad to have at length a very fine day, on which I could shew Dr. Johnson the Place of my family, which he has honoured with so much attention in his Journey. He is, however, mistaken in thinking that the Celtick name,

antry, or to be offended at his favourite topicks being treated lightly. I one day met him in the street, as I was hastening to the House of Lords, and told him, I was sorry I could not stop, being rather too late to attend an appeal of the Duke of Hamilton against Douglas. 'I thought (said he) their contest had been over long ago.' I answered, 'The contest concerning Douglas's filiation was over long ago; but the contest now is, who shall have the estate.' Then, assuming the air of ‘an ancient sage philosopher,' I proceeded thus: 'Were I to predicate concerning him, I should say, the contest formerly was, What is he? The contest now is, What has he?'—' Right, (replied Mr. Harris, smiling,) you have done with quality, and have got into quantity.' Boswell. 'Most likely Sir A. Macdonald. Ante, p. 168.

' Boswell wrote on March 18, 1775:- Mr. Johnson, when enumerating our Club, observed of some of us, that they talked from books,— Langton in particular. "Garrick," he said, "would talk from books, if he talked seriously." "I," said he, "do not talk from books; you do not talk from books." This was a compliment to my originality; but I am afraid I have not read books enough to be able to talk from them.' Letters of Boswell, p. 181. See ante, ii. 413, where Johnson said to Boswell:-'I don't believe you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more;' and i. 122, where he described 'a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books.'

Auchinleck,

432 A glow of genealogical enthusiasm.

[Nov. 4.

Auchinleck, has no relation to the natural appearance of it. I believe every Celtick 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 romantick 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 relation3 to the Royal Personage, whose liberality, on his accesssion to the throne, had given him comfort and independence*. I have, in a former page,

1 'Lord Auchinleck 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.' Johnson's Works, ix. 159. 'The house is scarcely yet finished, but very magnificent and very convenient.' Piozzi Letters, i. 201. See ante, i. 535.

2 See ante, ii. 473, and v. 103.

The relation, it should seem, was remote even for Scotland. Their common ancestor was Robert Bruce, some sixteen generations back. Boswell's mother's grandmother was a Bruce of the Earl of Kincardine's family, and so also was his father's mother. Rogers's Boswelliana, pp. 4, 5.

He refers to Johnson's pension, which was given nearly two years after George III's accession. Ante, i. 430.

5 Ante, p. 57.

acknowledged