after seeing these gentlemen, for they are not sorry." Murison said, all sorrow was bad, as it was murmuring against the dispensations of Providence. JOHNSON. "Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state, with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which wear out the past. You need not murmur, though you are sorry." MURISON. "But St. Paul says, 'I have learnt, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content.' JOHNSON. "Sir, that relates to riches and poverty; for we see St. Paul, when he had a thorn in the flesh, prayed earnestly to have it removed; and then he could not be content." Murison, thus refuted, tried to be smart, and drank to Dr. Johnson, "Long may you lecture!" Dr. Johnson afterwards, speaking of his not drinking wine, said, "The Doctor spoke of lecturing (looking to him). I give all these lectures on water."

He defended requiring subscription in those admitted to universities, thus: "As all who come into the country must obey the king, so all who come into an university must be of the Church."

And here I must do Dr. Johnson the justice to contradict a very absurd and ill-natured story, as to what passed at St. Andrews. It has been circulated, that, after grace was said in English, in the usual manner, he with the greatest marks of contempt, as if he had held it to be no grace in

an university, would not sit down till he had said grace aloud, in Latin. This would have been an insult indeed to the gentlemen who were entertaining us. But the truth was precisely thus. In the course of conversation at dinner, Dr. Johnson, in very good humour, said, "I should have expected to have heard a Latin grace, among so many learned men: we had always a Latin grace at Oxford. I believe I can repeat it." Which he did, as giving the learned men in one place a specimen of what was done by the learned men in another place. (1)

We went and saw the church, in which is Archbishop Sharp's (2) monument. (3) I was struck with the same kind of feelings with which the churches of Italy impressed me. I was much pleased to see Dr. Johnson actually in St. Andrews, of which we had talked so long. Professor Haddo was with us this afternoon, along with Dr. Watson. We looked at St. Salvador's College. The rooms for students seemed very commodious, and Dr. Johnson said, the chapel was the neatest place of worship he had seen. The key of the library

(1) [Boswell might have added, that as this dinner was at an inn, Johnson could not have seriously expected a Latin grace, said at Oxford only in the college halls.]

(2) James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was dragged from his coach, and murdered in the arms of his daughter, on Magus Moor, 3d of May, 1679. Sir Walter Scott, in his celebrated tale, entitled Old Mortality, has told this story with all the force of history and all the interest of romance. C.

(3) The monument is of Italian marble. The brother of the archbishop left a sum for preserving it, which, in one unhappy year, was expended in painting it in resemblance of reality. The daubing is now removed. WALTER SCOTT.

could not be found: for it seems Professor Hill, who was out of town, had taken it with him. Dr. Johnson told a joke he had heard of a monastery abroad, where the key of the library could never be found.

It was somewhat dispiriting, to see this ancient archiepiscopal city now sadly deserted. We saw in one of its streets a remarkable proof of liberal toleration; a nonjuring clergyman, strutting about in his canonicals, with a jolly countenance and a round belly, like a well-fed monk.

We observed two occupations united in the same person, who had hung out two sign-posts. Upon one was "James Hood, White Iron Smith " (i. e. tin-plate worker). Upon another, "The Art of Fencing Taught, by James Hood." Upon this last were painted some trees, and two men fencing, one of whom had hit the other in the eye, to show his great dexterity; so that the art was well taught. JOHNSON. "Were I studying here, I should go and take a lesson. I remember Hope (1), in his book on this art, says, 'the Scotch are very good fencers.''

We returned to the inn, where we had been entertained at dinner, and drank tea in company with some of the professors, of whose civilities I beg leave to add my humble and very grateful acknowledgment to the honourable testimony of Dr. Johnson, in his "Journey."

We talked of composition, which was a favourite

(1) [Sir William Hope, of the Hopetoune family, published, in 1692, a work entitled "The Comte Fencing Master."]

topic of Dr. Watson, who first distinguished himself by lectures on rhetoric. JOHNSON. "I advised Chambers, and would advise every young man beginning to compose, to do it as fast as he tan, to get a habit of having his mind to start promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve in speed than in accuracy." WATSON. "I own I am for much attention to accuracy in composing, lest one should get bad habits of doing it in a slovenly manner." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, you are confounding doing inaccurately with the necessity of doing inaccurately. A man knows when his composition is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it. But, if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with difficulty, upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not compose at all, as we do not like to do that which is not done easily; and, at any rate, more time is consumed in a small matter than ought to be." WATSON. "Dr. Hugh Blair has taken a week to compose a sermon." JOHNSON. "Then, Sir, that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, which I am insisting one should acquire." WATSON. "Blair was not composing all the week, but only such hours as he found himself disposed for composition." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, unless you tell me the time he took, you tell me nothing. If I say I took a week to walk a mile, and have had the gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty sermons. I have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post

that night. I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the French." (1) BOSWELL. "We have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; it is wonderful how much time some people will consume in dressing; taking uþ a thing and looking at it, and laying it down, and taking it up again. Every one should get the habit of doing it quickly. I would say to a young divine, Here is your text; let me see how soon you can make a sermon. Then I'd say, Let me see how much better you can make it. Thus I should see both his powers and his judgment."

We all went to Dr. Watson's to supper. Miss Sharp, great grandchild of Archbishop Sharp (2), was there, as was Mr. Craig, the ingenious architect of the new town of Edinburgh, and nephew of Thomson, to whom Dr. Johnson has since done so much justice in his "Lives of the Poets."

We talked of memory, and its various modes.

This ac

(1) This must have been the translation of Lobo. count of so much diligence does not seem to agree with that before given of his indolence in completing that translation. See ante, Vol. I. p. 94. But, as Sir Walter Scott observes, "a pool is usually succeeded in a river by a current, and he may have written fast to make up lee way.' - C.-[Perhaps, the Lobo is not meant at all. During certain years of early life, which Boswell leaves nearly a blank, Dr. Johnson may have translated many French trifles for the booksellers, as to which in after days he might choose to be silent.-J. G. L.]

(2) It is very singular that Dr. Johnson, with all his episcopal partiality, should have visited Archbishop Sharp's monument, and been in company with his descendant, without making any observation on his character and melancholy death, or on the general subject of Scottish episcopacy. - WALTER SCOTT.

VOL. IV.

F