The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson | Page 3

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 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
mentioned; but at present I cannot enter upon it, as I am in a very great
hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within an hour or two.
He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the
northern scale. But, indeed, Mr Johnson loved all that he heard from
one whom he tells us, in his Lives of the Poets, Gray found 'a poet, a
philosopher, and a good man'.
My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some time.
The reason will appear, when we come to the Isle of Sky. I shall then
insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself and Mr
Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own letters, as I
relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is valuable belonging to
others, than for their own sake.

Luckily Mr Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers, who was about to sail
for the East Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at Newcastle,
and he conducted Dr Johnson to that town. Mr Scott, of University
College, Oxford, (now Dr Scott, of the Commons) accompanied him
from thence to Edinburgh. With such propitious convoys did he
proceed to my native city. But, lest metaphor should make it be
supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he travelled
in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his most
favourite amusements.
Dr Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and literary,
nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally known than
those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt
a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a sincere
and zealous Christian, of high Church of England and monarchical
principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady
and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both
from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the
Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please,
and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a
most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast
and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he
communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice
expression. He united a most logical head with a most fertile
imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing;
for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. He
could, when he chose it, be the greatest sophist that ever wielded a
weapon in the schools of declamation; but he indulged this only in
conversation; for he owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too
conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by deliberately
writing it. He was conscious of his superiority. He loved praise when it
was brought to him; but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat
susceptible of flattery. His mind was so full of imagery, that he might
have been perpetually a poet. It has been often remarked, that in his
poetical pieces, which it is to be regretted are so few, because so
excellent, his style is easier than in his prose. There is deception in this:
it is not easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may

dance with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking--in the common
step--are awkward. He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of
which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to
his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his
deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently
indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to
superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline
him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous
reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a
slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some additional weight
to the sterling metal of his conversation. Lord Pembroke said once to
me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some truth, that 'Dr
Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his
bow-wow way': but I admit the truth of this only