I recollect very little of this night's conversation. I am sorry that indolence came upon me towards the conclusion of our journey, so that I did not write down what passed with the same assiduity as during the greatest part of it.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26.
Mr. M'Aulay breakfasted with us, nothing hurt or dismayed by his last night's correction. Being a man of good sense, he had a just admiration of Dr. Johnson.
Either yesterday morning, or this, I communicated to Dr. Johnson, from Mr. M'Aulay's information, the news that Dr. Beattie had got a pension of two hundred pounds a year[966]. He sat up in his bed, clapped his hands, and cried, 'O brave we[967]!'—a peculiar exclamation of his when he rejoices[968].
As we sat over our tea, Mr. Home's tragedy of Douglas was mentioned. I put Dr. Johnson in mind, that once, in a coffee house at Oxford, he called to old Mr. Sheridan, 'How came you, Sir, to give Home a gold medal for writing that foolish play?' and defied Mr. Sheridan to shew ten good lines in it. He did not insist they should be together; but that there were not ten good lines in the whole play[969]. He now persisted in this. I endeavoured to defend that pathetick and beautiful tragedy, and repeated the following passage:—
|
—'Sincerity, Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave Thy onward path, although the earth should gape, And from the gulph of hell destruction cry, To take dissimulation's winding way[970].' |
JOHNSON. 'That will not do, Sir. Nothing is good but what is consistent with truth or probability, which this is not. Juvenal, indeed, gives us a noble picture of inflexible virtue:—
|
"Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem Integer: ambiguae si quando citabere testis, Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis, Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tauro, Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas[2]."' |
He repeated the lines with great force and dignity; then added, 'And, after this, comes Johnny Home, with his earth gaping, and his destruction crying:—Pooh[971]!'
While we were lamenting the number of ruined religious buildings which we had lately seen, I spoke with peculiar feeling of the miserable neglect of the chapel belonging to the palace of Holyrood-house, in which are deposited the remains of many of the Kings of Scotland, and many of our nobility. I said, it was a disgrace to the country that it was not repaired: and particularly complained that my friend Douglas, the representative of a great house and proprietor of a vast estate, should suffer the sacred spot where his mother lies interred, to be unroofed, and exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. Dr. Johnson, who, I know not how, had formed an opinion on the Hamilton side, in the Douglas cause, slily answered, 'Sir, Sir, don't be too severe upon the gentleman; don't accuse him of want of filial piety! Lady Jane Douglas was not his mother.' He roused my zeal so much that I took the liberty to tell him he knew nothing of the cause: which I do most seriously believe was the case[972].