Tour to He defended requiring subscription in those admitted to universities, thus: "As all who come into the country must obey the king, so all who come into an university must be of the church." And here I must do Dr. Johnson the justice to contradict a very absurd and ill-natured story, as to what passed at St. Andrews. It has been circulated, that, after grace was said in English, in the usual manner, he with the greatest marks of contempt, as if he had held it to be no grace in an university, would not sit down till he had said grace aloud in Latin. This would have been an insult indeed to the gentlemen who were entertaining us. But the truth was precisely thus. In the course of conversation at dinner, Dr. Johnson, in very good humour, said, "I should have expected to have heard a Latin grace, among so many learned men: we had always a Latin grace at Oxford. I believe I can repeat it." Which he did, as giving the learned men in one place a specimen of what was done by the learned men in another place. We went and saw the church, in which is Archbishop Sharp's' monument. I was struck with the same kind of feelings with which the churches of Italy impressed me. I was much pleased to see Dr. Johnson actually in St. Andrews, of which we had talked so long. Professor Haddo was with us this afternoon, along with Dr. Watson. We looked at St. Salvador's College. The rooms for students seemed very commodious, and Dr. Johnson said, the chapel was the neatest place of worship he had seen. The key of the library could not be found: for it [James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, was dragged from his coach, and murdered in the arms of his daughter, on Magus Moor, 3d of May, 1679. Sir Walter Scott, in his celebrated tale, entitled Old Mortality, has told this story with all the force of history and all the interest of romance.-ED.] [The monument is of Italian marble. The brother of the archbishop left a sum for preserving it, which, in one unhappy year, was expended in painting it in resemblance of reality. The daubing is now removed.-WALTER SCOTT.] Hebrid. seems Professor Hill, who was out of town, had Tour to taken it with him. Dr. Johnson told a joke he had heard of a monastery abroad, where the key of the library could never be found. It was somewhat dispiriting, to see this ancient archiepiscopal city now sadly deserted. We saw in one of its streets a remarkable proof of liberal toleration; a nonjuring clergyman, strutting about in his canonicals, with a jolly countenance and a round belly, like a well-fed monk. We observed two occupations united in the same person, who had hung out two sign-posts. Upon one was "James Hood, White Iron Smith" (i. e. tinplate worker). Upon another, "The Art of Fencing Taught, by James Hood." Upon this last were painted some trees, and two men fencing, one of whom had hit the other in the eye, to show his great dexterity; so that the art was well taught. JOHNSON." Were I studying here, I should go and take a lesson. I remember Hope, in his book on this art, says, the Scotch are very good fencers.'" We returned to the inn, where we had been entertained at dinner, and drank tea in company with some of the professors, of whose civilities I beg leave to add my humble and very grateful acknowledgement to the honourable testimony of Dr. Johnson, in his "Journey." 66 We talked of composition, which was a favourite topick of Dr. Watson, who first distinguished himself by lectures on rhetorick. JOHNSON. “I advised Chambers, and would advise every young man beginning to compose, to do it as fast as he can, to get a habit of having his mind to start promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve in speed than in accuracy." WATSON. "I own I am for much attention to accuracy in composing, lest one should get Hebrid. Tour to bad habits of doing it in a slovenly manner." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, you are confounding doing inaccurately with the necessity of doing inaccurately. A man knows when his composition is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it. But, if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with difficulty, upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not compose at all, as we do not like to do that which is not done easily; and, at any rate, more time is consumed in a small matter than ought to be." WATSON. "Dr. Hugh Blair has taken a week to compose a sermon." JOHNSON." Then, sir, that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, which I am insisting one should acquire." WATSON. "Blair was not composing all the week, but only such hours as he found himself disposed for composition." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, unless you tell me the time he took, you tell me nothing. If I say I took a week to walk a mile, and have had the gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty sermons. I have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post that night. I wrote fortyeight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the French1." BOSWELL. "We have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; it is wonderful how much time some people will consume in dressing; taking up a thing and looking at it, and laying it down, and taking it up again. Every one should [This must have been the translation of Lobo; for Johnson translated no other work, consisting of this number of pages (viz. ninety-six), from the French. This account of so much diligence does not seem to agree with that before given of his indolence in completing that translation. See ante, vol. i. p. 56. But, as Sir W. Scott observes, "a pool is usually succeeded in a river by a current, and he may have written fast to make up lee way."-ED.] Hebrid. get the habit of doing it quickly. I would say to a Tour to young divine, Here is your text; let me see how soon you can make a sermon. Then I'd say, Let me see how much better you can make it. should see both his powers and his judgment." Thus I We all went to Dr. Watson's to supper. Miss Sharp, great grandchild of Archbishop Sharp', was there, as was Mr. Craig, the ingenious architect of the new town of Edinburgh, and nephew of Thomson, to whom Dr. Johnson has since done so much justice in his "Lives of the Poets." We talked of memory, and its various modes. JOHNSON." Memory will play strange tricks. One sometimes loses a single word. I once lost fugaces in the Ode Posthume, Posthume."" I mentioned to him, that a worthy gentleman of my acquaintance actually forgot his own name. JOHNSON. "Sir, that was a morbid oblivion." Friday, 20th August.-Dr. Shaw, the professor of divinity, breakfasted with us. I took out my "Ogden on Prayer," and read some of it to the company. Dr. Johnson praised him. “Abernethy (said he) allows only of a physical effect of prayer upon the mind, which may be produced many ways as well as by prayer; for instance, by meditation. Ogden goes farther. In truth, we have the consent of all nations for the efficacy of prayer, whether offered up by individuals or by assemblies; and Revelation has told us it will be effectual." I said, "Leechman" [It is very singular that Dr. Johnson, with all his episcopal partiality, should have visited Archbishop Sharp's monument, and been in company with his descendant, without making any observation on his character and melancholy death, or on the general subject of Scottish episcopacy.-WALTER SCOTT.] [An Irish dissenting divine, whose "Discourses on the Divine Attributes," and some volumes of sermons, are highly esteemed even by the clergy of the church of England. He died in 1740, in the sixtieth year of his age.-ED.] 3 [Dr. William Leechman, a Scotch divine, who published, amongst other valuable works, a discourse "On the Nature, Reasonableness, and Advantages of Prayer." He died in 1785, aged eighty.-ED.] Hebrid. Tour to seemed to incline to Abernethy's doctrine." Dr. Watson observed that Leechman meant to show that, even admitting no effect to be produced by prayer, respecting the Deity, it was useful to our own minds. He had given only a part of his system: Dr. Johnson thought he should have given the whole. Dr. Johnson enforced the strict observance of Sunday'. "It should be different (he observed) from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no levity." We went and saw Colonel Nairne's garden and grotto. Here was a fine old plane tree. Unluckily the colonel said there was but this and another large tree in the county. This assertion was an excellent cue for Dr. Johnson, who laughed enormously, calling to me to hear it. He had expatiated to me on the nakedness of that part of Scotland which he had seen. His "Journey" has been violently abused for what he has said upon this subject. But let it be considered that when Dr. Johnson talks of trees, he means trees of good size, such as he was accustomed to see in England; and of these there are certainly very few upon the eastern coast of Scotland. Besides, he said, that he meant to give only a map of of the road; and let any traveller observe how many trees, which deserve the name, he can see from the road from Berwick to Aberdeen. Had Dr. Johnson said "there are no trees" upon this line, he would have said what is colloquially true; because, by no trees, in common speech, we mean few. When he 2 1 [See ante, p. 74.—ED.] [Johnson has been unjustly abused for dwelling on the barrenness of Fife. There are good trees in many parts of that county, but the east coast along which lay Johnson's route is certainly destitute of wood, excepting young plantations. The other tree mentioned by Colonel Nairne is probably the Prior Letham plane, measuring in circumference at the surface nearly twenty feet, and at the setting on of the branches nineteen feet. This giant of the forest stands in a cold exposed situation, apart from every other tree.-WALTER SCOTT.] |