"Offer my best compliments to him, and assure "him that I shall be happy to have the satisfac"tion of seeing him under my roof."

To Dr. Beattie I wrote, "The chief intention "of this letter is to inform you, that I now se"riously believe Mr. Samuel Johnson will visit "Scotland this year: but I wish that every power "of attraction may be employed to secure our

having so valuable an acquisition, and therefore "I hope you will without delay write to me what "I know you think, that I may read it to the "mighty sage, with proper emphasis, before I "leave London, which I must do soon. He talks "of you with the same warmth that he did last year. We are to see as much of Scotland as we "can, in the months of August and: September. "We shall not be long of being at Marischal College. He is particularly desirous of seeing "some of the Western Islands.

Dr. Beattie did better: ipse venit. He was, however, so polite as to wave his privilege of nil mihi rescribas, and wrote from Edinburgh, as follows:

"YOUR very kind and agreeable favour of "the 20th of April overtook me here yesterday, "after having gone to Aberdeen, which place I' "left about a week ago. I am to set out this day "for London, and hope to have the honour of "paying my respects to Mr. Johnson and you, "about a week or ten days hence. I shall then "do what. I can, to enforce the topick you, men"tion; but at present I cannot enter upon it, as I

This, I find, is a Scotticism. I should have said, "It will not be long before we shall be at Marischal College."

"am in a very great hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within an hour or two. "

He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the northern scale. But, indeed, Mr. Johnson loved all that he heard, from one whom he tells us, in his Lives of the Poets, Gray found "a poet, a philosopher, and á good man.

My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some time. The reason will appear, when we come to the isle of Sky. I shall then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself and Mr. Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own letters, as I relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is valuable belonging to others, than for their own sake.

Luckily Mr. Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers, who was about to sail for the East-Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at Newcastle, and he conducted Dr. Johnson to that town. Mr. Scott, of University College, Oxford, (now Dr. Scott, of the Commons,) accompanied him from thence to Edinburgh. With such propitious convoys did he proceed to my native city. But, lést metaphor should make it be supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he travelled in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his most favourite amusements.

Dr. Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a sincere and zealous

christian, of high church of England and monar chical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of declamation; but he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He was conscious of his superiority. He loved praise when it was brought to him; but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a poet. It has been often remarked, that in his poetical pieces, which it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent, his style is easier than in his prose. There is deception in this it is not easier, but better suited to the dignity of yerse; as one may dance with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking,-in the common step, are awkward. He had a constitutional melan

choly, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the mar-vellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some additional weight to the sterling metal of his conversation.* His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantick, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of that evil, which, it was formerly imagined, the royal touch could cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, and was become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect

* Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some truth, that "Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear. so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way: " but I admit the truth of this only on some occasions. The Messiah, played upon the Canterbury organ, is more sublime than when played upon an inferior instrument: but very slight musick will seem grand, when conveyed to the ear through that majestick medium. While therefore Dr. Johnson's sayings are read, let his manner be taken along with them. Let it however be observed, that the sayings themselves are generally great; that, though he might be an ordinary composer at times, he was for the most part a Handel.

of a palsy; he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions,* of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance. He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair-buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown cloth great coat, with pockets which might have almost held the two volumes of his folio dictionary; and he carried in his hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for mentioning such minute particulars. Every thing relative to so great a man is worth observing. I remember. Dr. Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know that Milton worę latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles. When I mention the oak stick, it is but letting Hercules have his club; and, by-and-by, my readers will find this stick will bud, and produce a good joke.

This imperfect sketch of "the COMBINATION and the form" of that Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved, while in this world, and after whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased ALMIGHTY GOD to call him to a better

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* Such they appeared to me; but since the first edition, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to me, that Dr. Johnson's extraordinary gestures were only habits, in which he indulged himself at certain times. When in company, where he was not free, or when engaged earnestly in conversation, he never gave way to such habits, which proves that they were not involuntary." I still however think, that these gestures were involuntary; for surely had not that been the case, he would have restrained them in the publick streets.

[See the Author's Life of Dr. Johnson, i. 121, 122, 5th edit.]