what his abilities could do, and was sensible of it. He had the ordinary advantages of education; but he chose to pursue that oratory which is for the mob.'-Boswell. He had great effect on the passions.'— Johnson. Why, sir, I don't think so. He could not represent a succession of pathetick images. He vociferated, and made an impression. There, again, was a mind like a hammer.'-Dr. Johnson now said, a certain eminent political friend of our's was wrong, in his maxim of sticking to a certain set of men on all occasions. I can see that a man may do right to stick to a party (said he); that is to say, he is a Whig, or he is a Tory, and he thinks one of those parties upon the whole the best, and that, to make it prevail, it must be generally supported, though, in particulars, it may be wrong. He takes its faggot of principles, in which there are fewer rotten sticks than in the other, though some rotten sticks to be sure; and they cannot well be separated. But, to bind one's self to one man, or one set of men, (who may be right to-day and wrong to-morrow,) without any general preference of system, I must disapprove 1.' He 1 If due attention were paid to this observation, there would be more virtue, even in politicks. What Dr. Johnson justly condemned, has, I am sorry to say, greatly increased in the present reign. At the distance of four years from this conversation, 21st February 1777, My Lord Archbishop of York, in his 'sermon 'before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,' thus indignantly describes the then state of parties: Parties once had a principle belonging to them, absurd perhaps, and in'defensible, but still carrying a notion of duty, by which honest minds might easily be caught. 'But they are now combinations of individuals, who, instead of being the sons ' and servants of the community, make a league for advancing their private ' interests. It is their business to hold high the notion of political honour. I believe and trust, it is not injurious to say, that such a bond is no better 'than that by which the lowest and wickedest combinations are held together; ' and that it denotes the last stage of political depravity.' To find a thought, which just shewed itself to us from the mind of Johnson, thus appearing again at such a distance of time, and without any communication between them, enlarged to full growth in the mind of Markham, is a curious object of philosophical contemplation.-That two such great and luminous minds should have been so dark in one corner,-that they should have held it to be Wicked rebellion' in the British subjects established in America, to resist the abject condition of holding all their property at the mercy of British subjects remaining at home, while their allegiance to our common Lord the King was to be preserved inviolate,—is a striking proof to me, either that 'He who sitteth in Heaven,' scorns the loftiness of human pride, or that the evil spirit, whose personal existence I strongly believe, and even in this age am confirmed in that belief by a Fell, nay, by a Hurd, has more power than some choose to allow. He told us of Cooke, who translated Hesiod, and lived twenty years on a translation of Plautus, for which he was always taking subscriptions; and that he presented Foote to a Club, in the following singular manner: This is the nephew of the gentleman who was lately hung in chains for murdering his brother.' In the evening I introduced to Mr. Johnson1 two good friends of mine, Mr. William Nairne, Advocate, and Mr. Hamilton of Sundrum, my neighbour in the country, both of whom supped with us. I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Dr. Johnson displayed another of his heterodox opinions, a contempt of tragick acting. He said, 'the action of all players in tragedy is bad. It should be a man's study to repress those signs of emotion and passion, as they are called.' He was of a directly contrary opinion to that of Fielding, in his Tom Jones; who makes Partridge say, of Garrick, ' why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should ' have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did.' For, when I asked him, 'Would not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does, if you saw a ghost?' He answered, 'I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost.' Monday, 16th August. Dr. William Robertson came to breakfast. We talked of Ogden on Prayer. Dr. Johnson said, 'The same arguments which are used against God's hearing prayer, will serve against his rewarding good, and punishing evil. He has resolved, he has declared, in the former case as in the latter.' He had last night looked into Lord Hailes's 'Remarks on the History of Scotland.' Dr. Robertson and I said, it was a pity Lord Hailes did not write greater things. His lordship had not then published his 'Annals of Scotland.'-Johnson. I remember I was once on a visit at the house of a lady for whom I had a high respect. There was a good deal of company in the room. When they were gone, I said to this lady, "What foolish talking have we had!"'Yes, (said she,) but while they talked, you said nothing."—I was struck 1 It may be observed, that I sometimes call my great friend, Mr. Johnson, sometimes Dr. Johnson; though he had at this time a doctor's degree from Trinity College, Dublin. The University of Oxford afterwards conferred it upon him by a diploma, in very honourable terms. It was some time before I could bring myself to call him Doctor; but, as he has been long known by that title, I shall give it to him in the rest of this Journal. struck with the reproof. How much better is the man who does any thing that is innocent, than he who does nothing. Besides, I love anecdotes. I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.—If a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but few, in comparison of what we might get.' Dr. Robertson said, the notions of Eupham Macallan, a fanatick woman, of whom Lord Hailes gives a sketch, were still prevalent among some of the Presbyterians; and therefore it was right in Lord Hailes, a man of known piety, to undeceive them. We walked out, that Dr. Johnson might see some of the things which we have to shew at Edinburgh. We went to the ParliamentHouse, where the Parliament of Scotland sat, and where the Ordinary Lords of Session hold their courts; and to the New Session-House adjoining to it, where our Court of Fifteen (the fourteen Ordinaries, with the Lord President at their head,) sit as a court of Review. We went to the Advocates' Library, of which Dr. Johnson took a cursory view, and then to what is called the Laigh (or under) Parliament-House, where the records of Scotland, which has an universal security by register, are deposited, till the great Register Office be finished. I was pleased to behold Dr. Samuel Johnson rolling about in this old magazine of antiquities. There was, by this time, a pretty numerous circle of us attending upon him. Somebody talked of happy moments for composition; and how a man can write at one time, and not at another. Nay (said Dr. Johnson) a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly1 to it.' I here began to indulge old Scottish sentiments, and to express a warm regret, that, by our Union with England, we were no more ;our independent kingdom was lost.-Johnson. 'Sir, never talk of your independency, who could let your Queen remain twenty years in captivity, and then be put to death, without even a pretence of justice, without your ever attempting to rescue her; and such a Queen too! as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for.'-Worthy Mr. James Kerr, Keeper of the Records. Half our nation was bribed by English money.'-Johnson. Sir, that is no defence: 1 This word is commonly used to signify sullenly, gloomily; and in that sense alone it appears in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. I suppose he meant by it, 'with an obstinate resolution, similar to that of a sullen man.' defence that makes you worse.'-Good Mr. Brown, Keeper of the Advocates Library. 'We had better say nothing about it.'-Boswell. 'You would have been glad, however, to have had us last war, sir, to fight your battles! 'Johnson. We should have had you for the same price, though there had been no Union, as we might have had Swiss, or other troops. No, no, I shall agree to a separation. You have only to go home.”—Just as he had said this, I, to divert the subject, shewed him the signed assurances of the three successive Kings of the Hanover family, to maintain the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland. We'll give you that (said he) into the bargain.' 6 We next went to the great church of St. Giles, which has lost its original magnificence in the inside, by being divided into four places of Presbyterian worship. Come, (said Dr. Johnson jocularly to Principal Robertson 1,) let me see what was once a church!' We entered that division which was formerly called the New Church, and of late the High Church, so well known by the eloquence of Dr. Hugh Blair. It is now very elegantly fitted up; but it was then shamefully dirty. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we came to the great door of the Royal Infirmary, where, upon a board, was this inscription, Clean your feet!' he turned about slyly, and said, ⚫ There is no occasion for putting this at the doors of your churches! We then conducted him down the Post-house stairs, Parliamentclose, and made him look up from the Cow-gate to the highest building in Edinburgh, (from which he had just descended,) being thirteen. floors or stories from the ground upon the back elevation; the front wall being built upon the edge of the hill, and the back wall rising. from the bottom of the hill several stories before it comes to a level with the front wall. We proceeded to the College, with the Principal at our head. Dr. Adam Fergusson, whose Essay on the History of civil Society' gives him a respectable place in the ranks of literature, was with us. As the College buildings are indeed very mean, the Principal said to Dr. Johnson, that he must give them the same epithet that a Jesuit did when shewing a poor college abroad: Hæ miseria nostra. Dr. Johnson was, however, much pleased with the library, and with the conversation of Dr. James Robertson, Professor of Oriental Languages, the Librarian. We talked of Kennicot's edition of 1 I have hitherto called him Dr. William Robertson, to distinguish him from Dr. James Robertson, who is soon to make his appearance. But Principal, from his being the head of our college, is his usual designation, and is shorter so I shall use it hereafter. of the Hebrew Bible, and hoped it would be quite faithful.—Johnson. 'Sir, I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit, as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.’ I pointed out to him where there formerly stood an old wall enclosing part of the college, which I remember bulged out in a threatening manner, and of which there was a common tradition similar to that concerning Bacon's Study at Oxford, that it would fall upon some very learned man. It had some time before this been taken down, that the street might be widened, and a more convenient wall built. Dr. Johnson, glad of an opportunity to have a pleasant hit at Scottish learning, said, they have been afraid it never would fall.' We shewed him the Royal Infirmary, for which, and for every other exertion of generous publick spirit in his power, that noble-minded citizen of Edinburgh, George Drummond, will be ever held in honourable remembrance. And we were too proud not to carry him to the Abbey of Holyrood-house, that beautiful piece of architecture, but, alas! that deserted mansion of royalty, which Hamilton of Bangour, in one of his elegant poems, calls 'A virtuous palace, where no monarch dwells.' I was much entertained while Principal Robertson fluently harangued to Dr. Johnson, upon the spot, concerning scenes of his celebrated History of Scotland. We surveyed that part of the palace appropriated to the Duke of Hamilton, as Keeper, in which our beautiful Queen Mary lived, and in which David Rizzio was murdered; and also the State Rooms. Dr. Johnson was a great reciter of all sorts of things serious or comical. I over-heard him repeating here, in a kind of muttering tone, a line of the old ballad, Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-Night: 1 We returned to my house, where there met him, at dinner, the Duchess of Douglas, Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron, Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr. Cullen, advocate. Before dinner, he told us of a curious conversation between the famous George 1 The stanza from which he took this line is, But then rose up all Edinburgh, 'They rose up by thousands three; |