could be refreshed, nor remarks corroborated; because his web was fpun, not from objects that prefented themselves to his view, but from his own preexiftent ideas; I am convinced, that every body must have regretted the omiffion, had he, for any reason, withheld fo entertaining a series of reflections.

A reference to the work will difcover both the caufe and effect of the confined obfervation that must be remarked in it: he profeffes his views to be directed to life and manners: of the former, if taken in its general fenfe, he could obtain a very inadequate knowledge who was entertained by the opulent, at the best houses, with the best fare of the country, and who, while he fuffered no inconvenience within doors, enquired after little without; and, of the latter he could gain little information, for the manners he most closely obferved were imported from the places where fouthern elegance is taught. His known love of eafe precluded him from intelligence: all deficiencies by which he could fuffer, the natural hofpitality of thofe to whom he was a gueft, temporarily fupplied or concealed, and happy was it for him that he found not the fame prejudices that he carried

with him.

In all Johnfon's difquifitions, whether argumentative or critical, there is a certain even-handed juftice that leaves the mind in a strange perplexity. When he fpeaks of the paucity of trees in Scotland, his indig nation feems excited at the fupineness it manifested. He fays to drop a feed into the ground can coft nothing, and the trouble is not great of protecting the young plant till it is out of danger.'— In this the reader willingly acquiefces, and wonders, with Johnson,

Johnson, that plantation is neglected, till he is told in the conclufion of the paragraph, that it must be allowed difficult, where there is neither wood for palifades, nor thorns for hedges. He again, in a fubfequent page, refumes the fame kind of fatirical admiration, which he balances by obferving, that the land which covers future forefts cannot be arable. This alfo is fatisfactory: the queftion of firft importance certainly is-Where fhall corn grow?-no one will deny, that food must be secured, before the delights of foliage, or the emoluments of timber are thought of. But all our wonder and regret at national inactivity, is diffipated, when we are told, that Sir James Macdonald had made an experiment by planting feveral millions of trees, which the want of fences to keep the cattle off, had rendered abortive. Thus it is that he frequently raifes an edifice, which appears founded and supported to refift any attack; and then, with the next stroke, annihilates it, and leaves the vacuity he found.

With respect to the inaccuracy he has been charged with, it must, in juftice, be imputed to the defect of his perceptions: he neither faw nor heard clearly; and, though this might be urged against his attempting to relate what he had met with or been told, it must be admitted in excufe for any mif-reprefentation; fince no one could acquire credit by doubting the uniform veracity of Johnfon. He candidly confeffes his inability, whenever he fufpected it; and owns, that his thoughts are the thoughts of one who has feen little.

I wish I could as readily apologize for the manner in which he speaks of the people of that part of Scot

land he vifited. He feems to think a barren foil difgraceful to the proprietors; and his averfion is most excited, where he finds the comforts of life moft fparingly bestowed: where he meets with refinement, he is placid, and is unwilling to depart from elegance; but, when he is difpleafed, or unfatisfied, he expreffes himself with a keenness of fatire, which, however it may delight by its poignancy, is not to be juftified; and I have reafon to think very highly, not only of the kindness which confulted his humour, but of that temper and forbearance which reftrained thofe perfons who, while they were endeavouring to gratify him, received indubitable proof of his antipathy to their country.

ment.

But it is due to him to take notice, that in civility he has preferved the fame equilibrium as in arguIf he has ftigmatized Scotland as a country, and the Scots as a people, his compliments to individuals, in fome meafure atone for it: they are judicious, elegant, and well conceived, and express the fense of gratitude proportioned to the favours he experienced.

I will not repeat, for I do not wish to perpetuate, thofe paffages that have given difguft. I have ever efteemed the Scots as a brave, useful, and virtuous people, and should be very forry if they imagined Johnfon's prejudices common to their fouthern neighbours. If, in his journey across their continent, he had remembered, that a very commendable and well-directed fpirit of literary industry had diftinguished them, and, when among the Hebridians, that a perpetual struggle against difficulties, and a patient toleration of irremediable evils, is eminently laudable,

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laudable, I am perfuaded he would have written with less afperity, and that his remarks would not have given that offence which I cannot but own well founded.

It is no lefs to be lamented, that he left not behind him those prejudices against the ecclefiaftical establishment of Scotland and the religious perfuafion of the people, which, though in England they gave little offence, could not, in that kingdom, be indulged without the fufpicion of bigotry. It is pretty well agreed that, between the church of England and that of Scotland, the queftions in difpute relate not to doctrines, but to difcipline, which, in the judgment of many fober perfons, is numbered among things indifferent. Being in a country of which Chriftianity, in its utmost purity, is the religion, it might have been expected, that Johnfon, with a true catholic fpirit, and as a teftimony of respect for their teachers, would occafionally have been prefent at divine fervice in their churches; but his narrative contains not the leaft hint of any fuch compliance, though he has noted his joining in public worship at the English non-juring epifcopal chapel at Aberdeen *.

From a tour to which he had no ftronger an incentive, from which he was fo little able to extract pleafure, and which had occafioned a fufpenfion of the enjoyments he found in a metropolis, it seems at first wonderful, that he fhould have returned fatisfied:

For this condefcenfion he would have had the example of Mr. Richard Baxter, a man whom he professed to admire, who, as I have been credibly informed, to teftify his charity towards thofe from whom he diffented in opinion, was wont, once in every year, to communicate with the established church,

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that

that he did fo is certain; and it must be attributed to the gratification he felt in the respect that had been paid to him, in seeing the celebrity he had acquired, and in increasing the stock of his ideas.

Had Johnson been more explicit in his acknowledgments of the hofpitable and courteous treatment he experienced from a people, who had reason to look on him rather as a ípy than a traveller, and might have faid to him- To discover the naked

nefs of the land are ye come,'-he would have given a proof, that he had, in fome degree, overcome his prejudices against them and their country; but they feemed to be unconquerable.

One of the laft duties we learn, is that of confidering mankind as one great family, and the natives of foreign countries, however differing from us in opinions, manners, customs, and other particulars, as ftanding in the fame relation with ourselves to the common Father of us all a duty which leads us, as Thompson elegantly expreffes it, to

fcan our nature with a brother's eye.'

Johnfon's prejudices were too ftrong to permit him to extend his philanthropy much beyond the limits of his native country, and the pale of his own church; and, that he was unable to conquer his habits of thinking and judging, is the only apology that can be offered for his afperity towards the people whofe country and manners he, in his journey above fpoken of, has taken upon him to defcribe; or that he has forborne to difplay any fuch generous fentiments respecting the inhabitants of Scotland as others have done who have vifited that country.