益 HEBRIDES.] 347 pears to me that I labour, when I say a what we (looking to me) would call a parcause pleaded." good thing." BOSWELL." You are loud, liament-house_scene; a JOHNSON. "That is part of the life of a sir, but it is not an effort of mind." Monboddo is a wretched place, wild and nation in peace. And there are in Homer naked, with a poor old house, though, if I such characters of heroes, and combinations recollect right, there are two turrets, which of qualities of heroes, that the united powers mark an old baron's residence. Lord Mon- of mankind ever since have not produced boddo received us at his gate most courteous- any but what are to be found there." ly; pointed to the Douglas arms upon his MON BODDO. "Yet no character is describ"No; they all develope house, and told us that his great-grandmo- ed." JOHNSON. "In such houses," themselves. Agamemnon is always a genther was of that family. said he, "our ancestors lived, who were tleman-like character; he has always Barbetter men than we." "No, no, my lord," T3. That the ancients held so, is plain from this; that Euripides, in his Hecuba, 66 we are as strong said Dr. Johnson; as they, and a great deal wiser." This was makes him the person to interpose 4." "The history of manners is an assault upon one of Lord Monboddo's MONBODDO. "Nor capital dogmas, and I was afraid there would the most valuable. I never set a high value have been a violent altercation in the very on any other history." JOHNSON. close, before we got into the house. But I; and therefore I esteem biography, as givBOSWELL. his lordship is distinguished not only for ing us what comes near to ourselves, what "But in "ancient metaphysicks," but for ancient we can turn to use." politesse, "la vieille cour," and he made the course of general history we find manners. In wars, we see the dispositions of no reply. people, their degrees of humanity, and othJOHNSON. Yes; but er particulars." then you must take all the facts to get this, and it is but a little you get." MONBODDO. "And it is that little which makes history valuable." Bravo! thought I; they agree His lordship was drest in a rustick 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 enthusiastick a farmer as he, and was certainJOHNSON. "It does ly a practical one. not always follow, my lord, that a man, who has written a good poem on an art, has practised it. Philip Miller1 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 The shield of Achilles shows a nation age. in war, a nation in peace; harvest sport, "Ay, and nay stealing 2." MON BODDO. Gardener's Dictionary.”— ED.] [Author of the " Brevis 2 My note of this is much too short. esse laboro, obscurus fio. Yet as I have resolved, that the very Journal which Dr. Johnson read shall be presented to the publick, 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, neither of which can be said like two brothers. 66 MON BODDO. "I am sorry, Dr. Johnson, you were not longer at "Learning has decreased in England, because learning will to change the genuine Journal. One of the best criticks 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."-BosWELL. 3 [Something royal.-ED.] 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 in still more in his criticism upon Pope's Homer, his life of that poet. My excellent friend, Mr, 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 supe riority of Homer.-BoswELL, not do so much for a man as formerly. | or believes he follows an abstemious system, There are other ways of getting preferment. seemed struck with Dr. Johnson's manner of Few bishops are now made for their learn- living. I had a particular satisfaction in ing. To be a bishop, a man must be learn- being under the roof of Monboddo, my lord ed in a learned age, factious in a factious being my father's old friend, and having. age, but always of eminence. Warburton been always very good to me. We were is an exception, though his learning alone cordial together. He asked Dr. Johnson did not raise him. He was first an antago- and me to stay all night. When I said we nist to Pope, and helped Theobald to pub- must be at Aberdeen, he replied, "Well, I lish his Shakspeare; but, seeing Pope the am like the Romans: I shall say to you, rising man, when Crousaz attacked his Es- Happy to come; happy to depart !"" He say on Man,' for some faults which it has, thanked Dr. Johnson for his visit. JOHNand some which it has not, Warburton de- SON. "I little thought, when I had the fended it in the Review of that time. This honour to meet your lordship in London, brought him acquainted with Pope, and he that I should see you at Monboddo." Afgained his friendship. Pope introduced him ter dinner, as the ladies were going away, to Allen, Allen married him to his niece; so, Dr. Johnson would stand up3. He insistby Allen's interest and his own, he was made ed that politeness was of great consequence a bishop. But then his learning was the in society. "It is (said he) fictitious besine qui non. He knew how to make the nevolence. It supplies the place of it amongst most of it, but I do not find by any dishon- those who see each other only in publick, est means." MONBODDO. "He is a great or but little. Depend upon it the want of it man." JOHNSON. "Yes, he has great never fails to produce something disagreeaknowledge, great power of mind. Hardly ble to one or other. I have always applied any man brings greater variety of learning to good breeding, what Addison in his Cato to bear upon his point." MONBODDO. "He says of honour: is one of the greatest lights of your church." JOHNSON. "Why, we are not so sure of his being very friendly to us. He blazes, if you will, but that is not always the steadiest light. Lowth is another bishop who has risen by his learning." Dr. Johnson examined young Arthur, Lord Monboddo's son, in Latin. He answered very well; upon which he said, with complacency, "Get you gone! When King James comes back 2, you shall be in the Muses' Welcome!" " 6 My lord and Dr. Johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the London shop-keeper had the best existence. His lordship, as usual, preferring the savage. My lord was extremely hospitable, and I saw both Dr. Johnson and him liking each other better every hour. Dr. Johnson having retired for a short time, his lordship spoke of his conversation as I could have wished. Dr. Johnson had said, "I have done greater feats with my knife than this;" though he had eaten a very hearty dinner. My lord, who affects [It was probably some conversation of the same tone as this, imperfectly recollected, or too slightly considered, which led Mr. Strahan to the statement, questioned ante, p. 240; that the king had told Johnson, that Pope had made Warburton a bishop. Johnson's account, here given, is rational in itself, and consistent with the known facts; Mr. Strahan's anecdote is neither.-ED.] I find some doubt has been entertained concerning Dr. Johnson's meaning here. It is to be supposed that he meant, "when a king shall again be entertained in Scotland."-BosWELL. [Dr. Johnson meant, probably, a little touch of Jacobite pleasantry.-ED.] Honour's a sacred tie; the law of kings; When he took up his large oak stick, he said, My lord, that's Homerick;" thus pleasantly alluding to his lordship's favourite writer. Gory, my lord's black servant, was sent as our guide, to conduct us to the high road. The circumstance of each of them having a black servant was another point of similarity between Johnson and Monboddo. I observed how curious it was to see an African in the north of Scotland, with little or no difference of manners from those of the natives. Dr. Johnson laughed to see Gory and Joseph riding together most cordially. "Those two fellows (said he), one from Africa, the other from Bohemia, seem quite at home." He was much pleased with Lord Monboddo to-day. He said, he would have pardoned him for a few paradoxes, when he found he had so much that was good: but that, from his appearance in London, he thought him all paradox; which would not do. He observed that his lordship had talked no paradoxes to-day. “And as to the savage and the London shopkeeper (said he), I don't know but I might have taken the side of the savage equally, had any body else taken the side of the shop [Such is the happy improvement of manners, that readers of this day will wonder that a mark of respect to ladies now so universal should ever have been withheld. It surely was not so in England at this period.—ED.] I objected to the last phrase, as being low. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is intended to be low: it is satire. The expression is debased, to debase the character." When Gory was about to part from us, Dr. Johnson called to him," Mr. Gory, give me leave to ask you a question! are you baptised?" Gory told him he wasand confirmed by the Bishop of Durham. He then gave him a shilling. We had a tedious driving this afternoon, and were somewhat drowsy. Last night I was afraid Dr. Johnson was beginning to faint in his resolution; for he said, "If we must ride much, we shall not go; and there's an end on 't." To-day, when he talked of Sky with spirit, I said, "Why, sir, you seemed to me to despond yesterday. You are a delicate Londoner; you are a maccaroni; you can't ride." JOHNSON. "Sir, I shall ride better than you. I was only afraid I should not find a horse able to carry me." I hoped then there would be no fear of getting through our wild Tour. We came to Aberdeen at half an hour past eleven. The New Inn, we were told, was full. This was comfortless. The waiter, however, asked if one of our names was Boswell, and brought me a letter left at the inn: it was from Mr. Thrale, enclosing one to Dr. Johnson. Finding who I was, we were told they would contrive to lodge us by putting us for a night into a room with two beds. The waiter said to me in the broad strong Aberdeenshire dialect, "I thought I knew you, by your [likeness to your father." My father puts up at the New Inn, when on his circuit. Little was said to-night. I was to sleep in a little press-bed in Dr. Johnson's room. I had it wheeled out into the dining-room, and there I lay very well. Sunday, 22d August.-I sent a message to Professor Thomas Gordon, who came and breakfasted with us. He had secured 1 Johnson says to Mrs. Thrale, "We agreed pretty well, only we disputed in adjusting the claim of merit between a shopkeeper of London and a savage of the American wildernesses. Our opinions were, I think, maintained on both sides without full conviction. Monboddo declared boldly for the savage, and I, perhaps for that reason, sided with the citizen."--Letters, v. i. p. 115. See also another avowal of his readiness to take the wrong side of a question for the sake of argument, sub 16th June, 1784.-ED.] seats for us at the English chapel 2. We found a respectable congregation, and an admirable organ, well played by Mr. Tait. We walked down to the shore. Dr. Johnson laughed to hear that Cromwell's soldiers taught the Aberdeen people to make shoes and stockings, and to plant cabbages. He asked, if weaving the plaids was ever a domestick art in the Highlands, like spinning or knitting. They could not inform him here. But he conjectured probably, that where people lived so remote from each other, it was likely to be a domestick art; as we see it was among the ancients, from Penelope. I was sensible to-day, to an extraordinary degree, of Dr. Johnson's excellent English pronunciation. I cannot account for its striking me more now than any other day; but it was as if new to me, and I listened to every sentence which he spoke, as to a musical composition. Professor Gordon gave him an account of the plan of education in his college. Dr. Johnson said, it was similar to that at Oxford. Waller, the poet's great grandson, was studying here. Dr. Johnson wondered that a man should send his son so far off, when there were so many good schools in England. He said, "At a great school there is all the splendour and illumination of many minds; the radiance of all is concentrated in each, or at least reflected upon each. But we must own that neither a dull boy, nor an idle boy, will do so well at a great school as at a private one. For at a great school there are always boys enough to do well easily, who are sufficient to keep up the credit of the school; and after whipping being tried to no purpose, the dull or idle boys are left at the end of a class, having the appearance of going through the course, but learning nothing at all. Such boys may do good at a private school, where constant attention is paid to them, and they are watched. So that the question of publick or private education is not properly a general one; but whether one or the other is best for my son." We were told the present Mr. Waller was a plain country gentleman; and his son would be such another. I observed, a family could not expect a poet but in a hundred generations. "Nay," said Dr. Johnson, not one family in a hundred can ex pect a poet in a hundred generations." He then repeated Dryden's celebrated lines,' "Three poets in three distant ages born," &c. and a part of a Latin translation of it done at Oxford: he did not then say by whom. He received a card from Sir Alexander Gordon, who had been his acquaintance twenty years ago in London, and who, "if forgiven for not answering a line from him," would come in the afternoon. Dr. Johnson rejoiced to hear of him, and begged he would come and dine with us. I was much pleased to see the kindness with which Dr. Johnson received his old friend Sir Alexander; a gentleman of good family (Lismore), but who had not the estate. The king's college here made him Professor of Medicine, which affords him a decent subsistence. He told us that the value of | the stockings exported from Aberdeen was, in peace, a hundred thousand pounds; and amounted, in time of war, to one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Dr. Johnson asked what made the difference? Here we had a proof of the comparative sagacity of the two professors. Sir Alexander answered, "Because there is more occasion for them in war." Professor Thomas Gordon answered, " Because the Germans, who are our great rivals in the manufacture of stockings, are otherwise employed in time of war." JOHNSON, "Sir, you have given a very good solution." At dinner, Dr. Johnson ate several platefulls of Scotch broth, with barley and peas in it, and seemed very fond of the dish. I said, "You never ate it before." JOHNSON. "No, sir; but I don't care how soon I eat it again." My cousin, Miss Dallas, formerly of Inverness, was married to Mr. Riddoch, one of the ministers of the English chapel here. He was ill, and confined to his room; but she sent us a kind invitation to tea, which we all accepted. She was the same lively, sensible, cheerful woman, as ever. Dr. Johnson here threw out some jokes against Scotland. He said, "You go first to Aberdeen; then to Enbru (the Scottish pronunciation of Edinburgh); then to Newcastle, to be polished by the colliers; then to York; then to London." And he laid hold of a little girl, Stuart Dallas, niece to Mrs. Riddoch, and, representing himself as a giant, said, he would take her with him! telling her, in a hollow voice, that he lived in a cave, and had a bed in the rock, and she should have a little bed cut opposite to it! He thus treated the point, as to prescription of murder in Scotland. "A jury in Engiand would make allowance for deficiencies of evidence, on account of lapse of time: but a general rule that a crime should not be punished, or tried for the purpose of punishment, after twenty years, is bad. It is cant to talk of the king's advocate delaying a prosecution from malice. How unlikely is it the king's advocate should have malice against persons who commit murder, or should even know them at all. If the son of the murdered man should kill the murderer who got off merely by prescription, I would help him to make his escape; though, were I upon his jury, I would not acquit him. I would not advise him to commit such an act. On the contrary, I would bid him submit to the determination of society, because a man is bound to submit to the inconveniences of it, as he enjoys the good: but the young man, though politically wrong, would not be morally wrong. He would have to say, 'Here I am amongst barbarians, who not only refuse to do justice, but encourage the greatest of all crimes. I am therefore in a state of nature; for, so far as there is no law, it is a state of nature; and consequently, upon the eternal and immutable law of justice, which requires that he who sheds man's blood should have his blood shed, I will stab the murderer of my father."" We went to our inn, and sat quietly. Dr. Johnson borrowed, at Mr. Riddoch's, a volume of Massillon's Discourses on the Psalms; but I found he read little in it. Ogden too he sometimes took up, and glanced at; but threw it down again. I then entered upon religious conversation. Never did I see him in a better frame: calm, gentle, wise, holy. I said, "Would not the same objection hold against the Trinity as against transubstantiation?" "Yes," said he, “if you take three and one in the same sense. If you do so, to be sure you cannot believe it; but the three persons in the Godhead are three in one sense, and one in another. We cannot tell how; and that is the mystery!" I spoke of the satisfaction of Christ. He said his notion was, that it did not atone for the sins of the world; but, by satisfying divine justice, by showing that no less than the Son of God suffered for sin, it showed to men and innumerable created beings the heinousness of it, and therefore rendered it unnecessary for divine vengeance to be exercised against sinners, as it otherwise must have been; that in this way it might * [See ante, p. 327.—ED.] But limns the water, or but writes in dust." I said, he should write expressly in support of Christianity; for that, although a reverence for it shines through his works in several places, that is not enough. "You know," said I, "what Grotius has done, and what Addison has done, you should do also." He replied, “I hope I shall.” operate even in favour of those who had confined in a mixed company. JOHNSON. never heard of it; as to those who did hear" What is to become of society, if a of it, the effect it should produce would be friendship of twenty years is to be broken repentance and piety, by impressing upon off for such a cause?" As Bacon says, the mind a just notion of sin; that original "Who then to frail mortality shall trust, sin was the propensity to evil, which no doubt was occasioned by the fall. He presented this solemn subject in a new light to me1, and rendered much more rational and clear the doctrine of what our Saviour has done for us; as it removed the notion of imputed righteousness in co-operating; whereas by this view, Christ has done all already that he had to do, or is ever to do, for mankind, by making his great satisfaction; the consequences of which will affect each individual according to the particular conduct of each. I'would illustrate this by saying, that Christ's satisfaction resembles a sun placed to show light to men, so that it depends upon themselves whether they will walk the right way or not, which they could not have done without that sun," the sun of righteousness." There is, however, more in it than merely giving light-"a light to lighten the Gentiles; for we are told, there is "healing under his wings." Dr. Johnson said to me, "Richard Baxter commends a treatise by Grotius, ' De Satisfactione Christi." I have never read it; but I intend to read it; and you may read it." I remarked, upon the principle now laid down, we might explain the difficult and seemingly hard text, "They that believe shall be saved; and they that believe not shall be damned." They that believe shall have such an impression made upon their minds, as will make them act so that they may be accepted by God. We talked of one of our friends 2 taking ill, for a length of time, a hasty expression of Dr. Johnson's to him, on his attempting to prosecute a subject that had a reference to religion, beyond the bounds within which the Doctor thought such topicks should be [Dr. My worthy, intelligent, and candid friend, Dr. Kippis, informs me, that several divines have thus explained the mediation of our Saviour. What Dr. Johnson now delivered was but a temporary opinion; for he afterwards was fully convinced of the propitiatory sacrifice, as I shall show at large in my future work, "The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D."-BOSWELL. Kippis was a dissenter. Dr. Johnson's Prayers and Meditations abundantly prove that he was, as far back as we have any record of his religious feelings, fully convinced of the propitiatory sacrifice. In the prayer on his birthday, in 1738 (transcribed by him in 1768), he expressly states his hope of salvation "through the satisfaction of Jesus Christ."-ED.] 2 [No doubt Mr. Langton. But see ante, p. 321; where it is surmised that the affair at Mr. Dilly's was probably not the sole cause of Mr. Langton's resentment.-ED.] : Monday, 23d August.-Principal Campbell, Sir Alexander Gordon, Professor Gordon, and Professor Ross, visited us in the morning, as did Dr. Gerard, who had come six miles from the country on purpose. We went and saw the Marischal College 3, and at one o'clock we waited on the magistrates in the town-hall, as they had invited us, in order to present Dr. Johnson with the freedom of the town, which Provost Jopp did with a very good grace. Dr. Johnson was much pleased with this mark of attention, and received it very politely. There was a pretty numerous company assembled. It was striking to hear all of them drinking "Dr. Johnson! Dr. Johnson!" in the town-hall of Aberdeen, and then to see him with his burgess-ticket, or diploma 4, in his hat, which he wore as he walked along the street, according to the usual custom. It gave me great satisfaction to observe the regard, and indeed fondness too, which every body here had for my father. While Sir Alexander Gordon conducted Dr. Johnson to old Aberdeen, Professor Gordon and I called on Mr. Riddoch, whom I found to be a grave worthy clergyman. He observed that, whatever might be said of Dr. Johnson while he was alive, he would, after he was dead, be looked upon by the world with regard and astonishment, on account of his Dictionary. 66 Aberdoniæ, vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum, Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, præpositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi Young, Georgii Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie Decani guildæ, et Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi. "Quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL. D. receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildæ præfati burgi de Aberdeen. In deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximia observantiæ tesseram, quibus dicti magistratus eum amplectuntur. Extractum per me, ALEX. CARNEGIE."-BOSWELL. |