"There is no occasion for putting this at the doors of your churches! "

We then conducted him down the Posthousestairs, Parliament-close, and made him look up from the Cowgate 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. (1) 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 showing a poor college abroad: "Hæ miseriæ nostræ." 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 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

The site is

(1) [This lofty house was burned down in 1824. now occupied by Sir William Forbes's bank.-CHAMBERS.]

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 showed him the royal infirmary, for which, and for every other exertion of generous public spirit in his power, that noble-minded citizen of Edinburgh, George Drummond (1), 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 overheard him repeating here, in a kind of muttering tone,

(1) [This excellent magistrate died in 1766. Some years after his death, a bust of him, by Nollekens, was placed in the public hall of the hospital, with this inscription from the pen of Robertson:-"George Drummond, to whom this country is indebted for all the benefit which it derives from the royal infirmary."]

a line of the old ballad," Johnny Armstrong's Last

Good Night."

"And ran him through the fair body (1)!"

We returned to my house, where there met him, at dinner, the Duchess of Douglas (2), Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron [Orde], Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr. Cullen, advocate. Before dinner, he told us of a curious conversation between the famous George Faulkner and him. George said, that England had drained Ireland of fifty thousand pounds in specie, annually, for fifty years. "How so, Sir?" said Dr. Johnson: " must have very great trade ?"—"No trade.”rich mines? "No mines." "From whence, then, does all this money come?' "Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of Ireland !"

you

“Very

He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift (3); for I once took the liberty

(1) The stanza from which he took this line is

"But then rose up all Edinburgh,

They rose up by thousands three;
A cowardly Scot came John behind,

And ran him through the fair body!"

(2) Margaret, daughter of James Douglas, Esq. of the Mains. "An old lady," writes Dr. Johnson, "who talks broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, and is scarce understood by her own countrymen."-Letters, vol. i. 209.-C.

(3) What could Johnson mean by calling Swift" shallow?” If he be shallow, who, in his department of literature, is profound? Without admitting that Swift was "inferior in coarse humour to Arbuthnot" (of whose precise share in the works to which he is supposed to have contributed, we know little or nothing), it may be observed, that he who is second to the greatest masters of different styles may be said to be the first on the whole. See as to the Tale of a Tub, antè, Vol. II. p. 239.-C.

to ask him, if Swift had personally offended him, and he told me, he had not. He said to-day, "Swift is clear, but he is shallow. In coarse humour he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour he is inferior to Addison. So he is inferior to his contemporaries, without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the Tale of a Tub' was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi.”

6

We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or grouse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and, so far as wisdom and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be deficient.

Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our deputy commander in chief, who was not only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars (1) I ever knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian's Poetry. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question, and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's notion of men having tails, and called him a judge à posteriori, which amused Dr. Johnson, and thus hostilities were prevented.

(1) Lord Stowell remembers with pleasure the elegance and extent of Sir Adolphus Oughton's literature, and the suavity of his manners.-C.

66

At supper we had Dr. Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Mr. Crosbie, advocate. (1) Witchcraft was introduced. Mr. Crosbie said he thought it the greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits counteracting the Deity, and raising storms, for instance, to destroy his creatures. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of the Deity, why may not physical evil be also consistent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil spirits than evil men: evil unembodied spirits, than evil embodied spirits. And as to storms, we know there are such things; and it is no worse that evil spirits raise them than that they rise." CROSBIE. "But it is not credible that witches should have effected what they are said in stories to have done." JOHNSON. "Sir, I am not defending their credibility. I am only saying that your arguments are not good, and I will not overturn the belief of witchcraft. - (Dr. Fergusson said to me aside,' He is right.') — And then, Sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilised, agreeing in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers. You must take evidence; you must consider that wise and great men have condemned witches to die." CROSBIE. "But an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft." JOHNSON. " No, Sir, witchcraft had ceased; and, therefore, an act of parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not witchcraft. Why it ceased we cannot

(1) Lord Stowell recollects that Johnson was treated by the Scottish literati with a degree of deference bordering on pusillanimity; but he excepts from that observation Mr. Crosbie, whom he characterises as an intrepid talker, and the only man who was disposed to stand up (as the phrase is) to Johnson.-C.