The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson | Page 6

would interfere in favour of him who was in the
right. But as it was found that in a duel, he who was in the right had not
a better chance than he who was in the wrong, therefore society
instituted the present mode of trial, and gave the advantage to him who
is in the right.'
We sat till near two in the morning, having chatted a good while after
my wife left us. She had insisted, that to shew all respect to the Sage,
she would give up her own bed-chamber to him, and take a worse. This
I cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations which
I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to accept of
me as her husband.
Sunday, 15th August
Mr Scott came to breakfast, at which I introduced to Dr Johnson, and
him, my friend Sir William Forbes, now of Pitsligo; a man of whom
too much good cannot be said; who, with distinguished abilities and
application in his profession of a banker, is at once a good companion,
and a good Christian; which I think is saying enough. Yet it is but
justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous illness, he was
watched with the anxious apprehension of a general calamity; day and
night his house was beset with affectionate inquiries; and, upon his
recovery, Te deum was the universal chorus from the hearts of his
countrymen.
Mr Johnson was pleased with my daughter Veronica,[Footnote: "The
saint's name of Veronica was introduced into our family through my
great grandmother Veronica, Countess of Kincardine, a Dutch lady of

the noble house of Sommelsdyck, of which there is a full account in
Bayle's Dictionary. The family had once a princely right in Surinam.
The governour of that settlement was appointed by the States General,
the town of Amsterdam, and Sommelsdyck. The States General have
acquired Sommelsdyck's right; but the family has still great dignity and
opulence, and by intermarriages is connected with many other noble
families. When I was at the Hague, I was received with all the affection
of kindred. The present Sommelsdyck has an important charge in the
Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives. He has honoured me with
his correspondence for these twenty years. My great grandfather, the
husband of Countess Veronica, was Alexander, Earl of Kincardine, that
eminent Royalist whose character is given by Burnet in his History of
his own Times. From him the blood of Bruce flows in my veins. Of
such ancestry who would not be proud? And, as Nihil est, nisi hoc sciat
alter, is peculiarly true of genealogy, who would not be glad to seize a
fair opportunity to let it be known "] then a child of about four months
old. She had the appearance of listening to him. His motions seemed to
her to be intended for her amusement; and when he stopped, she
fluttered, and made a little infantine noise, and a kind of signal for him
to begin again. She would be held close to him; which was a proof,
from simple nature, that his figure was not horrid. Her fondness for him
endeared her still more to me, and I declared she should have five
hundred pounds of additional fortune.
We talked of the practice of the law. William Forbes said, he thought
an honest lawyer should never undertake a cause which he was satisfied
was not a just one. 'Sir,' said Mr Johnson, 'a lawyer has no business
with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his
client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The
justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. Consider,
sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that every man may
have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is
not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he
knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury
and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of
evidence--what shall be the result of legal argument. As it rarely
happens that a man is fit to plead his own cause, lawyers are a class of

the community, who, by study and experience, have acquired the art
and power of arranging evidence, and of applying to the points of issue
what the law has settled. A lawyer is to do for his client all that his
client might fairly do for himself, if he could. If, by a superiority of
attention, of knowledge, of skill, and a better method of communication,
he