78

Want of Trees in Scotland.

[August 20.

'It should be different (he observed) from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. may be relaxation, but there should be no levity'.'

There

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 to 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, that he meant to give only 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

intimacy with Dr. Johnson he rarely permitted me to depart without some sententious advice. . . . His words at parting were, "Take care of your eternal salvation. Remember to observe the Sabbath. Let it never be a day of business, nor wholly a day of dissipation." He concluded his solemn farewell with, "Let my words have their due weight. They are the words of a dying man." I never saw him

more.'

1 See ante, ii. 82.

2. From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never seen a single tree which I did not believe to have grown up far within the present century. . . . The variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown.... A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice: I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so. "This," said he, " is nothing to another a few miles off." I was still less delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. Nay," said a gentleman that stood by, "I know but of this and that tree in the county.' Johnson's Works, ix. 7. In all this journey so far as Slains Castle] I have not travelled an hundred yards between hedges, or seen five trees fit for the carpenter.' Piozzi Letters, i. 120. See ante, ii. 345.

66

August 20.] Trees in the County of Fife.

79

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 shewn 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.' Professsor 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 Professsor Shaw; but I 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

1 One of the Boswells of this branch was, in 1798, raised to the bench under the title of Lord Balmuto. It was his sister who was Boswell's step-mother. Rogers's Boswelliana, pp. 4, 82.

2 The colony of Leuchars is a vain imagination concerning a certain fleet of Danes wrecked on Sheughy Dikes.' WALTER SCOTT. The fishing people on that coast have, however, all the appearance of being a different race from the inland population, and their dialect. has many peculiarities.' LOCKHART. Croker's Boswell, p. 286.

80

Transubstantiation.

[August 20.

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.

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 Catholick 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,

66

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“,

1

I should scarcely have regretted my journey, had it afforded nothing more than the sight of Aberbrothick.' Works, ix. 9.

'Johnson referred, I believe, to the last of Tillotson's Sermons preached upon Several Occasions, ed. 1673, p. 316, where the preacher says: Supposing the Scripture to be a Divine Revelation, and that these words (This is My Body), if they be in Scripture, must necessarily be taken in the strict and literal sense, I ask now, What greater evidence any man has that these words (This is My Body) are in the Bible than every man has that the bread is not changed in the sacrament? Nay, no man has so much, for we have only the evidence of one sense that these words are in the Bible, but that the bread is not changed we have the concurring testimony of several of our senses.' 'This also is Tillotson's argument. There is no more certain foundation for it [transubstantiation] in Scripture than for our Saviour's being substantially changed into all those things which are said of him, as that he is a rock, a vine, a door, and a hundred other things." Ib. p. 313.

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except

August 20.] Literary property and abridgements.

81

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, 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 Goliath.'

He said, our judges had not gone deep in the question concerning 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'.'

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 Musick had then been advertised. I asked if this was not unlucky: would not they hurt one

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.

1 See ante, p. 28.

'See ante, i. 162, note 4, and v. 56.

' Johnson, after saying that the inn was not so good as they expected, continues:-'But Mr. Boswell desired me to observe that the innkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as well as I could.' Works, ix. 9.

V.-6

another?

82

Johnson like a ghost.

[August 21.

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.'

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 any thing. 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.'

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

1

1 Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 29, 1775 (Piozzi Letters, i. 292):—‘I hope I shall quickly come to Streatham . . . and catch a little gaiety among you.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:-' That he never caught. He thought and mused at Streatham as he did habitually everywhere, and seldom or never minded what was doing about him.' On the margin of i. 315 Baretti has written :-' Johnson mused as much on the road to Paris as he did in his garret in London, as much at a French opera as in his room at Streatham.'

'A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson, by Thomas Tyers, Esq. See ante, iii. 350.

'This description of Dr. Johnson appears to have been borrowed from Tom Jones, bk. xi. ch. ii. The other who, like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to, readily answered,' &c. Boswell.

good