CHAPTER XII.

blontre-Lawrence Kirk-Monboddo-Emigration-Homer-Biography and History-De crease of Learning-Promotion of Bishops-Citizen and Savage-Aberdeen-Professor Gordc-Public and Private Education-Sir Alexander Gordon-Trade of AberdeenDoctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement-Johnson a Burgess of Aberdeen-Dinner at Sir A. Gordon's-Warburton-Locke's Latin Verses-Ossian.

Montrose, Saturday, Aug 21st.-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 townhall, where is a good dancing-room, and other rooms for tea-drinking. The appearance of the town from it is very well; but many of the houses are built with their ends to the street, which looks awkward. When we came down from it, I met Mr. Gleig, a merchant here. He went with us to see the English chapel. It is situated on a pretty dry spot, and there is a fine walk to it. It is really an elegant building, both within and without. The organ is adorned with green and gold. Dr. Johnson gave a shilling extraor dinary to the clerk, saying, "He belongs to an honest church." I put him in mind, that episcopals were but dissenters here; they were only tolerated. "Sir," said he, we are here, as Christians in Turkey." He afterwards went into an apothecary's shop, and ordered some medicine for himself, and wrote the prescription in technical characters. The boy took him for a physician.

I doubted much which road to take, whether to go by the coast, or by Lawrence Kirk and Monboddo. I knew Lord Monboddo and Dr. Johnson did not love each other; yet I was unwilling not to visit his lordship; and was also curious to see them together.' I

1 There were several points of similarity between them; learning, clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of research on many subjects which people in general do not investigate. Foote paid Lord Monboddo the compliment of saying, that he was "an Elzevir edition of Johnson." ." It has been shrewdly observed, that Foote must have meant a diminutive, or pocket edition.-B. Johnson himself thus describes Lord Monboddo to Mrs. Thrale: "He is a Scotch judge, who has lately written a strange book about the origin of language, in which

I therefore sent

mentioned my doubts to Dr. Johnson, who said he would go two miles out of his way to see Lord Monboddo. Joseph forward, with the following note :

We

"Montrose, 21st August. "MY DEAR LORD,-Thus far I am come with Mr. Samuel Johnson. must be at Aberdeen to-night. I know you do not admire him so much as I do; but I cannot be in this country without making you a bow at your old place, as I do not know if I may again have an opportunity of seeing Monboddo. Besides, Mr. Johnson says, he would go two miles out of his way to see Lord Monboddo. I have sent forward my servant, that we may know if your lordship be at home. I am ever, &c.,

"JAMES BOSWELL."

As we travelled onwards from Montrose, we had the Grampian hills in our view, and some good land around us, but void of trees and hedges. Dr. Johnson has said ludicrously, in his " Journey," that the hedges were of stone; for, instead of the verdant thorn to refresh the eye, we found the bare wall or dike intersecting the prospect. He observed, that it was wonderful to see a country so divested, so denuded of trees.

We stopped at Lawrence Kirk, where our great grammarian, Ruddiman, was once schoolmaster. We respectfully remembered that excellent man and eminent scholar, by whose labours a knowledge of the Latin language will be preserved in Scotland, if it shall be preserved at all. Lord Gardenston, one of our judges, collected money to raise a monument to him at this place, which I hope will be well executed. I know my father gave five guineas towards it. Lord Gardenston is the proprietor of Lawrence Kirk, and has encouraged the building of a manufacturing village, of which he is exceedingly fond, and has written a pamphlet upon it, as if he had founded Thebes, in which, however, there are many useful precepts strongly expressed. The village seemed to be irregularly built, some of the houses being of clay, some of brick, and some of brick and stone. Dr. Johnson observed, they thatched well here.

I was a little acquainted with Mr. Forbes, the minister of the

he traces monkeys up to men, and says that in some countries the human species nave taila like other beasts. He inquired for these long-tailed men from [Sir Joseph] Banks, and was not pleased that they had not been found in all his peregrinations. He talked nothing of this to me."-0.

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parish. I sent to inform him that a gentleman desired to see him. He returned for answer, "that he would not come to a stranger." I then gave my name, and he came. I remonstrated to him for not coming to a stranger; and, by presenting him to Dr. Johnson, proved to him what a stranger might sometimes be. His Bible inculcates "be not forgetful to entertain strangers," and mentions the same motive. He defended himself by saying, "He had once come to a stranger, who sent for him; and he found him ' a little worth person! !"

Dr. Johnson insisted on stopping at the inn, as I told him Lord Gardenston had furnished it with a collection of books, that tra vellers might have entertainment for the mind as well as the body He praised the design, but wished there had been more books, and those better chosen.

About a mile from Monboddo, where you turn off the road, Joseph was waiting to tell us my lord expected us to dinner. We drove over a wild moor. It rained, and the scene was somewhat dreary. Dr. Johnson repeated, with solemn emphasis, Macbeth's speech on meeting the witches. As we travelled on, he told me, "Sir, you got into our Club by doing what a man can do.' Several of the members wished to keep you out. Burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for it: but, now you are in, none of them are sorry. Burke says, that you have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue." BOSWELL. " 'They were afraid of you, Sir, as it was you who proposed me." JOHNSON. "Sir, they knew, that if they refused you, they'd probably never have got in another. I'd have kept them all out. Beauclerk was very earnest for you." BOSWELL. "Beauclerk has a keenness of mind which is very uncommon." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; and everything comes from him so easily. It appears to me that I labour, when I say a good thing." BOSWELL. "You are loud, Sir, but it is not an effort of mind."

Monboddo is a wretched place, wild and naked, with a poor old house, though, if I recollect right, there are two turrets, which mark an old baron's residence. Lord Monboddo received us at his

1 This, I find, is considered obscure. I suppose Dr. Johnson meant, that I assiduously and earnestly recommended myself to some of the members, as in a canvass for an election into parliament,

gate most conrteously, pointed to the Douglas arms upon his house, and told us that his great-grandmother was of that family. "In such houses," said he, our ancestors, lived, who were better men than we." "No, no, my lord," said Dr. Johnson; we are as strong as they, and a great deal wiser." This was an assault upon one of Lord Monboddo's capital dogmas, and I was afraid there would have been a violent altercation in the very close before we got into the house. But his lordship is distinguished not only for ancient metaphysics," but for ancient politesse, "la vieille cour." and he made no reply.

His lordship was drest in a rustic suit, and wore a little round hat; he told us, we now saw him as Farmer Burnet, and we should have his family dinner, a farmer's dinner. He said, "I should not have forgiven Mr. Boswell, had he not brought you here, Dr. Johnson." He produced a very long stalk of corn, as a specimen of his crop, and said, "You see here the latas segetes," he added, that Virgil seemed to be as enthusiastic a farmer as he, and was certainly a practical one. JOHNSON. "It does not always follow, my lord, that a man who has written a good poem on an art, has practised it. Philip Miller' told me, that in Philips's' Cyder,' a poem, all the precepts were just, and indeed better than in books written for the purpose of instructing; yet Philips had never made cyder." "

I started the subject of emigration. JOHNSON. "To a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument against going to America, but that it will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for ages in barbarism."

He and my lord spoke highly of Homer. JOHNSON. "He had all the learning of his age. The shield of Achilles shows a nation in war, a nation in peace: harvest sport, nay stealing." MON

1 Philip Miller, author of the "Gardener's Dictionary." He was born at Chelsea in 1691, and died in 1771.

2" To the poem of 'Cyder' may be given this peculiar praise, that it is grounded in truth; that the precepts which it contains are exact and just; and that it is therefore, a' once a book of entertainment and science."-JOHNSON, Life of Philips.

My note of this is much to short Brevis esse lal ore, obscurus fo. Yet as▸ 0210

ETAT. 61.

DECREASE OF LEARNING.

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BODDO. "Ay, and what we (looking to me) would call a parliamenthouse scene; a cause pleaded." JOHNSON. "That is part of the life of a nation in peace. And there are in Homer such characters of heroes, and combinations of qualities of heroes, that the unitea powers of mankind ever since have not produced any but what are to be found there." MONBODDO."Yet no character is described." JOHNSON. "No; they all develope themselves. Agamemnon is always a gentleman-like character; he has always Baotikov TI.' That the ancients held so, is plain from this; that Euripides, in his Hecuba, makes him the person to interpose. MONBODDO. The history of manners is the most valuable. I never set a high value on any other history." JOHNSON. "Nor I; and therefore I esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use." BOSWELL. "But in the course of general history we find manners. In wars, we see the dispositions of people, their degrees of humanity, and other particulars." JOHNSON. "Yes; but then you must take all the facts to get this, and it is but a little you get." MONBODDO. 86 And it is that little which makes histury valuable." Bravo! thought I; they agree like two brothers. MONBODDO. "I am sorry, Dr. Johnson, you were not longer at Edinburgh, to receive the homage of our men of learning." JOHNSON "My lord, I received great respect and great kindness." BosWELL. He goes back to Edinburgh after our tour." We talked of the decrease of learning in Scotland, and of the "Muses' Welcome." JOHNSON. "Learning is much decreased in England, in my remembrance." MONBODDO. "You, Sir, have lived to see its decrease in

resolved, that the very Journal which Dr. Johnson read shall be presented to the public, I will not expand the text in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word to complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation in the writing, either of which can be said to change the genuine Journal. One of the best critics of our age conjectures that the imperfect passage above has probably been as follows:-" In his book we have an accurate display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant is delineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest sport, and the modes of ancient theft, are described."

1 Something royal.-C.

2 Dr. Johnson modestly said, he had not read Homer so much as he wished he had done. But this conversation shows how well he was acquainted with the Moonian bard; and he has shown it still more in his criticism upon Pope's Homer, in his life of that poet. My excellent friend, Dr. Langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the comparative merits of Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on both sides, Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer.