48

The Abbey of Holyrood-house.

[August 16.

that beautiful piece of architecture, but, alas! that deserted mansion of royalty, which Hamilton of Bangour, in one of his elegant poems, calls

'A virtuous palace, where no monarch dwells'.'

I was much entertained while Principal Robertson fluently harangued to Dr. Johnson, upon the spot, concerning scenes of his celebrated History of Scotland. We surveyed that part of the palace appropriated to the Duke of Hamilton, as Keeper, in which our beautiful Queen Mary lived, and in which David Rizzio was murdered; and also the State Rooms. Dr. Johnson Dr. Johnson was a great reciter of all sorts of things serious or comical. I overheard him repeating here in a kind of muttering tone, a line of the old ballad, Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night:

'And ran him through the fair body"!'

We returned to my house, where there met him, at dinner, the Duchess of Douglas, Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron, Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr. Cullen*, Advocate. Before dinner he told us of a curious

There where no statesman buys, no bishop sells;

A virtuous palace where no monarch dwells.'

An Epitaph. Hamilton's Poems, ed. 1760, p. 260. See ante, iii. 170. * The stanza from which he took this line is,

'But then rose up all Edinburgh,

They rose up by thousands three;
A cowardly Scot came John behind,

And ran him through the fair body!'

BOSWELL.

' Johnson described her as 'an old lady, who talks broad Scotch with a paralytick voice, and is scarce understood by her own countrymen.' Piozzi Letters, i. 109. Lord Shelburne says that her husband, the last Duke, could neither read nor write without great difficulty.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 11. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 107) says that in 1745 he heard her say :-'I have sworn to be Duchess of Douglas or never to mount a marriage bed.' She married the Duke in 1758. R. Chambers wrote in 1825-'It is a curious fact that sixty years ago there was scarcely a close in the High Street but what had as many noble inhabitants as are at this day to be found in the whole town.' Traditions of Edinburgh, ed. 1825, i. 72.

* See ante, ii. 176, note 2.

conversation

August 16.] Johnson's prejudice against Swift.

49

conversation between the famous George Faulkner' and him. George said that England had drained Ireland of fifty thousand pounds in specie, annually, for fifty years. 'How so, Sir! (said Dr. Johnson,) you must have a very great trade?' 'No trade.' 'Very rich mines?' 'No mines.' 'From whence, then, does all this money come?' 'Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of Ireland!'

He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift'; for I once took the liberty to ask him, if Swift had personally offended him, and he told me he had not. He said to-day, 'Swift is clear, but he is shallow. In coarse humour, he is inferior to Arbuthnot'; in delicate humour, he is inferior to Addison. So he is inferior to his contemporaries; without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the Tale of a Tub was his*: it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi".

1 Lord Chesterfield wrote from London on Dec. 16, 1760 (Misc. Works, iv. 291):-'I question whether you will ever see my friend George Faulkner in Ireland again, he is become so great and considerable a man here in the republic of letters; he has a constant table open to all men of wit and learning, and to those sometimes who have neither. I have been able to get him to dine with me but twice.'

2 Dr. Johnson one evening roundly asserted in his rough way that "Swift was a shallow fellow; a very shallow fellow." Mr. Sheridan replied warmly but modestly, "Pardon me, Sir, for differing from you, but I always thought the Dean a very clear writer." Johnson vociferated, "All shallows are clear."' Town and Country Mag. Sept. 1769.

Notes and Queries, Jan. 1855, p. 62. See ante, iv. 71.

3 The Memoirs of Scriblerus,' says Johnson (Works, viii. 298), 'seem to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope.' Swift also was concerned in it. Johnson goes on to shew why this joint production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from mankind.' Arbuthnot was the author of John Bull. Swift wrote to Stella on May 10, 1712-I hope you read John Bull. It was a Scotch gentleman, a friend of mine, that wrote it; but they put it upon me.' See ante, i. 492.

50

Witchcraft.

[August 16,

We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or growse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and so far as wisdom and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be deficient.

Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our Deputy Commander in Chief, who was not only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars I ever knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian's Poetry'. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question; and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's' notion of men having tails, and called him a Judge, à posteriori, which amused Dr. Johnson; and thus hostilities were prevented.

At supper' we had Dr. Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Mr. Crosbie, advocate. Witchcraft was introduced'. Mr. Crosbie said, he thought it the greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits counteracting the Deity, and raising storms, for instance, to destroy his creatures. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of the Deity, why may not physical evil be also consistent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil spirits, than evil men: evil unembodied spirits, than evil embodied spirits. And as to storms, we know there are such things; and it is no worse that evil spirits raise them, than that they rise.' CROSBIE. 'But it is not credible, that witches should have effected what they are said in stories to have done.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I am not defending their credibility. I am only saying, that your

1 See ante, i. 458, and ii. 340, 341.

2 See ante, ii. 83-85.

At supper there was such a conflux of company that I could scarcely support the tumult. I have never been well in the whole journey, and am very easily disordered.' Piozzi Letters, i. 109. • See ante, iv. 20, and under June 9, 1784.

arguments

August 16.]

Witchcraft.

51

arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of witchcraft.-(Dr. Fergusson said to me, aside, 'He is right.")-And then, Sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized, agreeing in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers. You must take evidence: you must consider, that wise and great men have condemned witches to die'.' CROSBIE. 'But an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft'.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; witchcraft had ceased; and therefore an act of parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not witchcraft. Why it ceased, we cannot tell, as we cannot tell the reason of many other things.' -Dr. Cullen, to keep up the gratification of mysterious disquisition, with the grave address for which he is remarkable in his companionable as in his professional hours, talked, in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and conversing in their sleep. I am very sorry I have no note of this. We talked of the Ouran-Outang, and of Lord Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to speak. Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr. Crosbie said, that Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse. JOHNSON. But, Sir, it is as possible that the Ouran-Outang does not speak, as that he speaks. However, I shall not contest the point. I should have thought it not possible to find a Monboddo; yet he exists.' I again mentioned the stage. JOHNSON. 'The appearance of a player, with whom I have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the

'Johnson was thinking of Sir Matthew Hale for one.

'It is supposed that there were no executions for witchcraft in England subsequently to the year 1682; but the Statute of 1 James I, c. 12, so minute in its enactments against witches, was not repealed till the 9 Geo. II, c. 5. In Scotland, so late as the year 1722, when the local jurisdictions were still hereditary [see post, Sept. 11], the sheriff of Sutherlandshire condemned a witch to death.' Penny Cyclo. xxvii. 490. In the Bishopric of Wurtzburg, so late as 1750, a nun was burnt for witchcraft: Cette malheureuse fille soutint opiniâtrément qu'elle était sorcière. . . . Elle était folle, ses juges furent imbécilles et barbares.' Voltaire's Works, ed. 1819, xxvi. 285.

character

52

Scepticism in morals and religion. [August 17.

character he represents. Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents. They say, "See Garrick! how he looks to-night! See how he'll clutch the dagger!" That is the buz of the theatre'.'

TUESDAY, AUGUST 17.

Sir William Forbes came to breakfast, and brought with him Dr. Blacklock, whom he introduced to Dr. Johnson, who received him with a most humane complacency; 'Dear Dr. Blacklock, I am glad to see you!' Blacklock seemed to be much surprized, when Dr. Johnson said, 'it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his Dictionary. His mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other. Besides; composing a Dictionary requires books and a desk: you can make a poem walking in the fields, or lying in bed.' Dr. Blacklock spoke of scepticism in morals and religion, with apparent uneasiness, as if he wished for more certainty. Dr. Johnson, who had thought it all over, and whose vigorous understanding was fortified by much experience, thus encouraged the blind Bard to apply to higher speculations what we all willingly submit to in common life: in short, he gave him more familiarly the able and fair reasoning of Butler's Analogy: Why, Sir, the greatest

1

A Dane wrote to Garrick from Copenhagen on Dec. 23, 1769: There is some of our retinue who, not understanding a word of your language, mimic your gesture and your action: so great an impression did it make upon their minds, the scene of daggers has been repeated in dumb show a hundred times, and those most ignorant of the English idiom can cry out with rapture, "A horse, a horse; my kingdom for a horse!" Garrick Corres. i. 375. See ante, vol. iv. under Sept.

30, 1783.

2 See ante, i. 539.

'Johnson, in the preface to his Dictionary (Works, v. 43), after stating what he had at first planned, continues:- But these were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake a lexicographer.' See ante, i. 219, note 1, and May 1, 1783.

See his letter on this subject in the APPENDIX. BOSWELL. He had been tutor to Hume's nephew and was one of Hume's friends. J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 399.

concern