[1037] This and the next paragraph are not in the first edition. The paragraph that follows has been altered so as to hide the fact that the minister spoken of was Mr. Dun. Originally it stood:—'Mr. Dun, though a man of sincere good principles as a presbyterian divine, discovered,' &c. First edition, p. 478.
[1038] See ante, p. 120.
[1039] Old Lord Auchinleck was an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family; and, moreover, he was a strict presbyterian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not prevent his being a terribly proud aristocrat; and great was the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son James, for the nature of his friendships and the character of the personages of whom he was engoué one after another. 'There's nae hope for Jamie, mon,' he said to a friend. 'Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli—he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon?' Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. 'A dominie, mon—an auld dominie: he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Probably if this had been reported to Johnson, he would have felt it more galling, for he never much liked to think of that period of his life [ante, i.97, note 2]; it would have aggravated his dislike of Lord Auchinleck's Whiggery and presbyterianism. These the old lord carried to such a height, that once, when a countryman came in to state some justice business, and being required to make his oath, declined to do so before his lordship, because he was not a covenanted magistrate. 'Is that a'your objection, mon?' said the judge; 'come your ways in here, and we'll baith of us tak the solemn league and covenant together.' The oath was accordingly agreed and sworn to by both, and I dare say it was the last time it ever received such homage. It may be surmised how far Lord Auchinleck, such as he is here described, was likely to suit a high Tory and episcopalian like Johnson. As they approached Auchinleck, Boswell conjured Johnson by all the ties of regard, and in requital of the services he had rendered him upon his tour, that he would spare two subjects in tenderness to his father's prejudices; the first related to Sir John Pringle, president of the Royal Society, about whom there was then some dispute current: the second concerned the general question of Whig and Tory. Sir John Pringle, as Boswell says, escaped, but the controversy between Tory and Covenanter raged with great fury, and ended in Johnson's pressing upon the old judge the question, what good Cromwell, of whom he had said something derogatory, had ever done to his country; when, after being much tortured, Lord Auchinleck at last spoke out, 'God, Doctor! he gart kings ken that they had a lith in their neck'—he taught kings they had a joint in their necks. Jamie then set to mediating between his father and the philosopher, and availing himself of the judge's sense of hospitality, which was punctilious, reduced the debate to more order. WALTER SCOTT. Paoli had visited Auchinleck. Boswell wrote to Garrick on Sept. 18, 1771:—'I have just been enjoying the very great happiness of a visit from my illustrious friend, Pascal Paoli. He was two nights at Auchinleck, and you may figure the joy of my worthy father and me at seeing the Corsican hero in our romantic groves.' Garrick Corres. i. 436. Johnson was not blind to Cromwell's greatness, for he says (Works, vii. 197), that 'he wanted nothing to raise him to heroick excellence but virtue.' Lord Auchinleck's famous saying had been anticipated by Quin, who, according to Davies (Life of Garrick, ii. 115), had said that 'on a thirtieth of January every king in Europe would rise with a crick in his neck.'
[1040] See ante, p. 252.
[1041] James Durham, born 1622, died 1658, wrote many theological works. Chalmers's Biog. Dict. In the Brit. Mus. Cata. I can find no work by him on the Galatians; Lord Auchinleck's triumph therefore was, it seems, more artful than honest.
[1042] Gray, it should seem, had given the name earlier. His friend Bonstetten says that about the year 1769 he was walking with him, when Gray 'exclaimed with some bitterness, "Look, look, Bonstetten! the great bear! There goes Ursa Major!" This was Johnson. Gray could not abide him.' Sir Egerton Brydges, quoted in Gosse's Gray, iii. 371. For the epithet bear applied to Johnson see ante, ii. 66, 269, note i, and iv. 113, note 2. Boswell wrote on June 19, 1775:—'My father harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think, how shockingly erroneous!), and wandering (or some such phrase) to London.' Letters of Boswell, p. 207.
[1043] It is remarkable that Johnson in his Life of Blackmore [Works, viii. 42] calls the imaginary Mr. Johnson of the Lay Monastery 'a constellation of excellence.' CROKER.
[1044] Page 121. BOSWELL. See also ante, iii. 336.
[1045] 'The late Sir Alexander Boswell,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'was a proud man, and, like his grandfather, thought that his father lowered himself by his deferential suit and service to Johnson. I have observed he disliked any allusion to the book or to Johnson himself, and I have heard that Johnson's fine picture by Sir Joshua was sent upstairs out of the sitting apartments at Auchinleck.' Croker Corres. ii. 32. This portrait, which was given by Sir Joshua to Boswell (Taylor's Reynolds, i. 147), is now in the possession of Mr. Charles Morrison.
[1046] 'I have always said that first Whig was the devil.' Ante, iii. 326