46 A high building. [August 16. 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, Parliament-close, 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 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. Boswell. 'The dirtiness of the Scotch churches is taken off in The Tale of a Tub, sect. xi:-'Neither was it possible for the united rhetoric of mankind to prevail with Jack to make himself clean again.' In Humphry Clinker (Letter of Aug. 8) we are told that 'the good people of Edinburgh no longer think dirt and cobwebs essential to the house of God.' Bishop Horne (Essays and Thoughts, p. 45) mentioning 'the maxim laid down in a neighbouring kingdom that cleanliness is not essential to devotion,' continues, A Church of England lady once offered to attend the Kirk there, if she might be permitted to have the pew swept and lined. "The pew swept and lined!" said Mess John's wife, "my husband would think it downright popery." In 1787 he wrote that there are country churches in England 'where, perhaps, three or four noble families attend divine service, which are suffered year after year to be in a condition in which not one of those families would suffer the worst room in their house to continue for a week.' Essays and Thoughts, p. 271. Hume recommended Fergusson's friends to prevail on him to suppress the work as likely to be injurious to his reputation.' When in August 16.] Edinburgh College buildings. 47 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: 'Ha miseria 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 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, He it had great success he said that his opinion remained the same. had heard Helvetius and Saurin say that they had told Montesquieu that he ought to suppress his Esprit des Lois. They were still convinced that their advice was right. J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 385-7. It was at Fergusson's house thirteen years later that Walter Scott, a lad of fifteen, saw Burns shed tears over a print by Bunbury of a soldier lying dead on the snow. Lockhart's Scott, i. 185. See ib. vii. 61, for an anecdote of Fergusson. 'They were pulled down in 1789. Murray's Handbook for Scotland, ed. 1883, p. 60. See ante, ii. 147. 'See ante, iii. 407, and post, Johnson's Tour into Wales, Aug. 1, 1774. that 48 The Abbey of Holyrood-house. [August 16. 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, a line of the old ballad, Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night: 'And ran him through the fair body?!' 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 'There where no statesman buys, no bishop sells; An Epitaph. Hamilton's Poems, ed. 1760, p. 260. See ante, iii. 170. 'But then rose up all Edinburgh, BOSWELL. They rose up by thousands three; A cowardly Scot came John behind, And ran him through the fair body!' 'Johnson described her as 'an old lady, who talks broad Scotch with a paralytick voice, and is scarce understood by her own countrymen.' Piozzi Letters, i. 109. Lord Shelburne says that 'her husband, the last Duke, could neither read nor write without great difficulty.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 11. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 107) says that in 1745 he heard her say I have sworn to be Duchess of Douglas or never to mount a marriage bed.' She married the Duke in 1758. R. Chambers wrote in 1825-'It is a curious fact that sixty years ago there was scarcely a close in the High Street but what had as many noble inhabitants as are at this day to be found in the whole town.' Traditions of Edinburgh, ed. 1825, i. 72. 4 See ante, ii. 176, note 2. conversation August 16.] Johnson's prejudice against Swift. 49 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,) you must have a very great trade?' 'No trade.' 'Very 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!' He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift'; for I once took the liberty 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 sibi3.' 'Lord Chesterfield wrote from London on Dec. 16, 1760 (Misc. Works, iv. 291):—‘I question whether you will ever see my friend George Faulkner in Ireland again, he is become so great and considerable a man here in the republic of letters; he has a constant table open to all men of wit and learning, and to those sometimes who have neither. I have been able to get him to dine with me but twice.' ''Dr. Johnson one evening roundly asserted in his rough way that "Swift was a shallow fellow; a very shallow fellow." Mr. Sheridan replied warmly but modestly, “Pardon me, Sir, for differing from you, but I always thought the Dean a very clear writer." Johnson vociferated, "All shallows are clear." Town and Country Mag. Sept. 1769. Notes and Queries, Jan. 1855, p. 62. See ante, iv. 71. 3 4 The Memoirs of Scriblerus,' says Johnson (Works, viii. 298), 'seem to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope.' Swift also was concerned in it. Johnson goes on to shew why this joint production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from mankind.' Arbuthnot was the author of John Bull. Swift wrote to Stella on May 10, 1712-'I hope you read John Bull. It was a Scotch gentleman, a friend of mine, that wrote it; but they put it upon me.' See ante, i. 492. 50 Witchcraft. [August 16, We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or growse, 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 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. At supper we had Dr. Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Mr. Crosbie, advocate. 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 'See ante, i. 458, and ii. 340, 341. See ante, ii. 83-85. At supper there was such a conflux of company that I could scarcely support the tumult. I have never been well in the whole journey, and am very easily disordered.' Piozzi Letters, i. 109. • See ante, iv. 20, and under June 9, 1784. arguments |