HE WAS OF AN ADMIRABLE PREGNANCY OF WIT, AND THAT PREGNANCY MUCH IMPROVED BY CONTINUAL STUDY FROM HIS CHILDHOOD: BY WHICH HE HAD GOTTEN SUCH A PROMPTNESS IN EXPRESSING HIS MIND, THAT HIS EXTEMPORAL SPEECHES WERE LITTLE INFERIOR TO HIS PREMEDI TATED WRITINGS. Many, no DOUBT, HAD READ AS MUCH, AND PERHAPS MORE THAN HE; BUT SCARCE EVER ANY CONCOCTED HIS READING INTO JUDGEMENT AS HE DID. BAKER'S CHRONICLE. THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES, WITH SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. DR. JOHNSON had for many years given me hopes that we should go together, and visit the Hebrides. Martin's Account of those islands had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a system of life almost totally different from what we had been accustomed to see; and, to find simplicity and wildness, and all the circumstances of remote time or place, so near to our native great island, was an object within the reach of reasonable curiosity. Dr. Johnson has said in his "Journey," "that he scarcely remembered how. the wish to visit the Hebrides was excited;" but he told me, in summer, 1763, that his father put Martin's Account into his hands when he was very young, and that he was much pleased with it. We reckoned there would be some inconveniencies and hardships, and perhaps a little danger; but these we were persuaded were magnified in the imagination of every body. When I was at Ferney, in B 1764, I mentioned our design to Voltaire. He looked at me, as if I had talked of going to the North Pole, and said, "You do not insist on my accompanying you?" No, sir,'-" Then I am very willing you should go." I was not afraid that our curious expedition would be prevented by such apprehensions; but I doubted that it would not be possible to prevail on Dr. Johnson to relinquish, for some time, the felicity of a London life, which, to a man who can enjoy it with full intellectual relish, is apt to make existence in any narrower sphere seem insipid or irksome. I doubted that he would not be willing to come down from his elevated state of philosophical dignity; from a superiority of wisdom among the wise, and of learning among the learned; and from flashing his wit upon minds bright enough to reflect it. He had disappointed my expectations so long, that I began to despair; but in spring, 1773, he talked of coming to Scotland that year with so much firmness, that I hoped he was at last in earnest. I knew that, if he were once launched from the metropolis he would go forward very well; and I got our common friends there to assist in setting him afloat. To Mrs. Thrale in particular, whose enchantment over him seldom failed, I was much obliged. It was, "I'll give thee a wind.""Thou art kind."-To attract him, we had invitations from the chiefs Macdonald and Macleod; and, for additional aid, I wrote to Lord Elibank, Dr. William Robertson, and Dr. Beattie. To Dr. Robertson, so far as my letter concerned the present subject, I wrote as follows: happy to meet you scheme, if, in your "OUR friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, is in great "health and spirits; and, I do think, has a serious "resolution to visit Scotland this year. The more "attraction, however, the better; and therefore, "though I know he will be there, it will forward the "answer to this, you express yourself concerning "it with that power of which you are so happily "possessed, and which may be so directed as to operate strongly upon him." 66 His answer to that part of my letter was quite as I could have wished. It was written with the address and persuasion of the historian of America. "WHEN I saw you last, you gave us some hopes that you might prevail with Mr. Johnson "to make out that excursion to Scotland, with the "expectation of which we have long flattered our"selves. If he could order matters so, as to pass "some time in Edinburgh, about the close of the "summer session, and then visit some of the High"land scenes, I am confident he would be pleased "with the grand features of nature in many parts "of this country: he will meet with many persons "here who respect him, and some whom I am per"suaded he will think not unworthy of his esteem. "I wish he would make the experiment. He some"times cracks his jokes upon us; but he will find "that we can distinguish between the stabs of ma levolence, and the rebukes of the righteous, which "are like excellent oil, and break not the head. * Our friend Edmund Burke, who by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from Dr. Johnson, on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my repeating this passage to him, exclaimed," Oil of vitriol !" "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." 66 66 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 66 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." |