APPENDIX.

I.

In justice to the ingenious Dr. BLACKLOCK, I publish the following letter from him, relative to a passage in p. 32.

DEAR SIR,

H

TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

AVING lately had the pleasure of reading your account of the journey which you took with Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Western Isles, I take the liberty of transmitting my ideas of the conversation which happened between the doctor and myself concerning Lexicography and Poetry, which, as it is a little different from the delineation exhibited in the former edition of your Journal, cannot, I hope, be unacceptable; particularly since I have been informed that a second edition of that work is now in contemplation, if not in execution and I am still more strongly tempted to encourage that hope, from considering that, if every one concerned in the conversations related, were to send you what they can recollect of these colloquial entertainments, many curious and interesting particulars might be recovered, which the most assiduous attention could not observe, nor the most tenacious memory retain. A little reflection, sir, will convince you, that there is not an axiom in Euclid more intuitive nor more evident than the doctor's assertion that poetry was of much easier execution than lexicography. Any mind therefore endowed with common sense, must have been extremely absent from itself, if it discovered the least astonishment from hearing that a poem might be written with much more facility than the same quantity of a dictionary.

The real cause of my surprise was what appeared to me much more

ALLEGED MEETING OF JOHNSON AND

ADAM SMITH AT GLASGOW.

"BOSWELL has chosen to omit, for reasons which will be presently obvious, that Johnson and Adam Smith met at Glasgow; but I have been assured by Professor John Millar that they did so, and that Smith, leaving the party in which he had met Johnson, happened to come to another company, where Millar was. Knowing that Smith had been in Johnson's society, they were anxious to know what had passed, and the more so, as Dr. Smith's temper seemed much ruffled. At first Smith would only answer, 'He's a brute, he's a brute;' but, on closer examination, it appeared that Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he attacked him for some point of his famous letter on the death of Hume. Smith vindicated the truth of his statement. 'What did Johnson 'Why, he said,' replied Smith, resentment, he said, You lie.' said, You are a son of a -!' moralists meet and part, and such was the classical dialogue between two great teachers of philosophy."-Sir Walter Scott.

say?' was the universal inquiry. with the deepest impression of 'And what did you reply?' 'I On such terms did these two great

Now had Scott paused for one minute to verify his authority-and before such a story was admitted at the expense of two of the most eminent men of the eighteenth century, such a small share of hesitation would have seemed advisable-he would have discovered that, Professor John Millar notwithstanding, there could not have been one atom of truth in this wretched anecdote. In the autumn of 1773, when Johnson and Smith are said to have met at Glasgow, David Hume was alive. His death did not take place till nearly three years after Johnson's visit. Adam Smith's well-known letter to William Strahan, the printer, announcing the death of Hume on Sunday, August 25th, 1776, and using the words: "Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit," was published in the autumn of the same year. It would be well if all fabrications could be crushed as certainly and decisively as this. No one will suspect Scott of a malicious motive in telling this story there was no root of bitterness in his mind. But the same story has been repeated, where there was no special occasion even for an allusion to it, by the editors of the "Correspondence of William Wilberforce," London, Murray, 1840. Writing to Mr. T. Hawkins Brown, Mr. Wilberforce alluded to a certain coolness he had experienced in Dr. Smith, which was perhaps characteristic of the author of "The Wealth of Nations." To this merely casual, and, we doubt not, legitimate observation, the editors of those volumes added the following note, vol. i., p. 40:-" Adam Smith had visited London in the spring of this year, and been introduced by Mr. Dundas to Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, &c. They met frequently, and one day the conversation turned on Dr. Johnson's visit to Scotland. 'Some of our friends,' said Adam Smith, 'were anxious that we should meet, and a party was arranged for the purpose. In the course of the evening I was seen entering another society, and perhaps with a manner a little confused. 'Have you met Dr. Johnson?' my friends exclaimed. 'Yes, I have.' And what passed between you?' 'Immediately on my being introduced he addressed me : Dr. Smith, how came you to say that Hume was nearly the best man you ever knew?' 'Because he was so,' I answered. 'Sir,' he replied, 'you lie.' 'And what,' said they, 'was your answer?' 'Sir, you are the son of a bitch.' This example of Adam Smith's characteristic coolness can only be preserved by retaining his own coarseness of expression." This is, of course, the same story that Millar told to