Part 29

According to Dr. Robert Chambers “a story was told of his once making a serious objection to a law-paper, and in consequence to the whole suit, on account of the word _justice_ being thus spelt.”[820] Lord Braxfield, one of the ruffian judges, but a man of strong mind, “hearing him praised as a good judge, said, in his vulgar way, ‘Him! he knows nothing but the nooks of a cause.’ He was not without his crotchets. One day when he sat as President, he reprimanded a lawyer very sharply for making a ludicrous application of some text in the Gospels or Epistles. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘you may take liberties with the Old Testament, but I will not suffer you to meddle with the New.’”[821]

As an historian he had considerable merits. Johnson revised the proof-sheets of his _Annals of Scotland_, and found them “a new mode of history in our language.” “They are very exact,” he added, “but they contain mere dry particulars. They are to be considered as a Dictionary. You know such things are there, and may be looked at when you please.”[822] Gibbon praised him as “a diligent collector, and an accurate critic;” but he complained that when he came to criticise “the two invidious chapters” in the _Decline and Fall_, “he scrutinized each separate passage with the dry minuteness of a special pleader; and as he was always solicitous to make, he may have succeeded sometimes in finding a flaw.”[823] Hume spoke of him with contempt. “He is a godly man; feareth the Lord and escheweth evil, and works out his salvation with fear and trembling. None of the books he publishes are of his writing; they are all historical manuscripts, of little or no consequence.”[824] “Nothing delighted him more,” writes Ramsay of Ochtertyre, “than to demolish some historical fabric which length of time had rendered venerable. I lent an old lady the first volume of his _Annals_. She was so ill-pleased with the rejection of some popular stories of Wallace, that she said she would drive the powder out of his lordship’s wig if she were by him.”[825] With all his critical power he was a believer in Ossian. Burke, who once met him at dinner, “found him a clever man, and generally knowing.”[826]

[Sidenote: LORD HAILES AND DR. HALLAM.]

He had been educated at Eton, and there one day had noticed a little black-looking boy, who had come up “_to show for college_, _i.e._, to stand for a scholarship on the foundation.”

“After being examined he was found entitled to be placed high in the fourth form, if he could make a copy of Latin verses in a given time. As he knew nothing of the matter, his friend bade him throw the theme assigned him over the window[827] in a quill, and he would convey him the verses ere they were wanted. He told the door-keeper to carry a pen-case to the lad under examination, who exhibited the theme, and was elected. For some months Dalrymple lent him his aid in versifying. Dr. Hallam, now Dean of Bristol and Canon of Westminster, confessed many years after, with tears in his eyes, that next to the providence of God he owed all that he had to the philanthropy of Sir David Dalrymple.”[828]

If, as seems likely, the examination was competitive, the boy who did not get the scholarship might not have taken altogether the same view of the matter as the pious and tearful dean. Dr. Hallam was the father of the historian, and the grandfather of Arthur Hallam. Had it not been for Lord Hailes’s good-natured roguery the _In Memoriam_ might never have been written.

[Sidenote: NEW HAILES.]

New Hailes, as Johnson’s host told Ramsay of Ochtertyre, “had been first made by Mr. Smith, a Popish architect employed in fitting up King James’s chapel at the Abbey. He planted the oldest trees. It was acquired by Lord Hailes’s grandfather, the Lord Advocate, who gave it its present name.”[829] We may wonder where poor Mr. Smith sought shelter that day when the news reached Edinburgh that James II. had fled from London. He may well have been in danger, for “the rabble,” writes Burnet, “broke into the church of Holyrood House, which had been adorned at a great charge to be a royal chapel, defaced it quite, and seized on some that were thought great delinquents.”[830] When Lord Hailes came into the property, “his first care was to fit up the library—a magnificent room. The furnishing of it with an ample store of books was the great object of his ambition.”[831] The library is now the drawing-room—the most noble and learned drawing-room that I have ever seen, for the great and well-filled book-shelves still go round it from the floor almost to the lofty ceiling. If it was in this room that Johnson was received, no doubt he behaved as he did that April day, a year or two later, when he drove down to dine with Mr. Cambridge at Twickenham. “No sooner,” says Boswell, “had we made our bow to Mr. Cambridge in his library than Johnson ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on poring over the backs of the books.” Perhaps he turned to Lord Hailes, as he turned to Dr. Burney, on seeing his library, and said, “You are an honest man to have formed so great an accumulation of knowledge.”[832]

The house, like so many in Scotland, is built more after the continental than the English fashion. In the front is a square courtyard, on a level with which are the offices. The hall is reached by a flight of stone steps. As I came up to it a peacock was perched on the top. Above the door is inscribed the motto, _Laudo manentem_. Johnson’s bedroom was at one end of the house, on the same floor as the hall; but as the ground is higher on this side, it was on a level with the flower-garden, which was just beneath the windows. He had also a dressing-room, whence I looked out on pleasant hayfields, where the haymakers were hard at work. All about the house are fine trees, many of them planted, no doubt, by the old Popish architect; while on one side there is a lofty grove of beeches with a column in the middle, inscribed—

“Joanni Comiti de Stair De Patria et Principe optime merito Viventi positum MDCCXLVI.”

The Earl of Stair was a Dalrymple. At the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 he had been appointed Field-Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in South Britain.[833] Horace Walpole did not think highly of his services at this time for, after describing in the November of that year how “the Prince of Wales, the night of his son’s christening, had the citadel of Carlisle in sugar at supper, and the company besieged it with sugar-plums,” he continues, “One thing was very proper; old Marshal Stair was there, who is grown child enough to be fit to war only with such artillery.”[834] We can picture to ourselves Johnson walking up and down under the beech trees, reading the inscription, and telling how kindly he had been welcomed a few days earlier by the earl’s sister, the Countess of Loudoun, an old lady, “who in her ninety-fifth year had all her faculties entire. This,” adds Boswell, “was a very cheering sight to Dr. Johnson, who had an extraordinary desire for long life.”

With such a pleasant spot as this to live at, it is not surprising that Lord Hailes for many years would not take a house in Edinburgh, but resided constantly at New Hailes summer and winter “driving in every morning in session time before breakfast, and returning before dinner.” Dr. Alexander Carlyle, who was no bad judge of conviviality, said, “that nowhere did he get more good wine or more good _cracks_ than from Lord Hailes.”[835] Besides his learning and his hospitality he had, like so many of Johnson’s Scotch friends, deserved the praise of being a good landlord. He did not raise his rents.[836] [Sidenote: LORD HAILES’S WILL.] On his death his will could not be found. He had no sons, and the heir-male was about to take possession of his estates to the exclusion of his daughter, Miss Hailes. She had made her preparations for leaving her old home, and had sent some of her servants to lock up his town house in New Street. As one of them was closing the shutters of a window the will dropped out upon the floor from behind a panel. It was found to secure her in the possession of the estates. She enjoyed them for upwards of forty years.[837]

[Sidenote: LORD ELIBANK.]

Johnson paid a visit also to Patrick, Lord Elibank, and stayed two nights “at his seat in the country.” I at first thought that this was Darnhall, near Peebles, and accordingly visited that most delightful spot. But I have little doubt that it was at Ballencrieff, in the neighbourhood of Haddington, where he stayed.[838] Smollett, when he takes Matthew Bramble through this part of the country, makes him say: “I intended to pay my respects to Lord Elibank, whom I had the honour to know at London many years ago. He lives in this part of Lothian, but was gone to the North on a visit. I have long revered him for his humanity and universal intelligence, over and above the entertainment arising from the originality of his character.”[839] He was a Jacobite, and a member of that famous Cocoa Tree Club, which, according to Boswell, “was sacred of old to loyalty.” The loyalty, by the way, was rather towards the third James than the second George. Horace Walpole tells how, after Culloden, “the Duke of Cumberland gave Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender’s coach, on condition he rode up to London in it. ‘That I will, Sir,’ said he, ‘and drive till it stops of its own accord at the Cocoa Tree.’”[840] Lord Elibank had been deeper in the cause than was known at the time. According to Sir Walter Scott, the Stuart Papers show that “he carried on a correspondence with the Chevalier after 1745, which was not suspected by his most intimate friends.”[841] He probably was made to pay dearly for his attachment to the exiled family. Lord Cromartie, one of the rebel lords, “had been,” says Walpole, “receiver of the rents of the king’s second son in Scotland, which it was understood he should not account for, and by that means had six hundred pounds a year from the Government. Lord Elibank, a very prating, impertinent Jacobite, was bound for him in nine thousand pounds, for which the duke is determined to sue him.”[842] If the money was exacted, the loss must have been severely felt, for Elibank was somewhat parsimonious. “When he heard of John Home’s pension, he said, ‘It is a very laudable grant, and I rejoice at it; but it is no more in the power of the king to make John Home rich than to make me poor.’”[843] Perhaps when he said this he was thinking how the king had done his best to impoverish him by exacting “the penalty and forfeit of his bond,” and had failed.

One day he and Dr. Robertson called on Johnson at Boswell’s house, and the talk turned on the Rebellion. Lord Elibank, addressing the historian, said: “Mr. Robertson, the first thing that gave me a high opinion of you was your saying in the Select Society, while parties ran high, soon after the year 1745, that you did not think worse of a man’s moral character for his having been in rebellion. This was venturing to utter a liberal sentiment, while both sides had a detestation of each other.” Such a sentiment must have been particularly comforting to a man who perhaps was still plotting treason. The Select Society had been founded in 1754 by Allan Ramsay the painter, aided by Robertson, Hume, and Adam Smith. “It rubbed off all corners by collision,” says Dr. Carlyle, “and made the _literati_ of Edinburgh less captious and pedantic than they were elsewhere.”[844] If collision always rubbed off corners, there was enough between Elibank and Hume to have produced the greatest smoothness and even polish. The historian, in the fifth volume of his _History of England_, speaks of him as “a person that has writ an _Enquiry historical and critical into the evidence against Mary Queen of Scots_.” He goes on to accuse him with having “almost directly called him a liar,” and charges him in his turn with being guilty of “scandalous artifices.” He concludes with that well-known passage, in which he maintains that “there are indeed three events in our history which may be regarded as touchstones of party-men. An English Whig, who asserts the reality of the Popish Plot, an Irish Catholic, who denies the massacre in 1641, and a Scotch Jacobite, who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, must be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, and must be left to their prejudices.”[845] In a letter to Robertson, written some years earlier than this note, Hume says: “I desire my compliments to Lord Elibank. I hope his lordship has forgot his vow of answering us, and of washing Queen Mary white. I am afraid that is impossible; but his lordship is very well qualified to gild her.”[846] Hume, with all his good nature, was not a little touchy, and perhaps took offence where no offence was meant. Lord Elibank had been “the early patron of Robertson and Home, the tragick poet, who when they were ministers of country parishes, lived near his seat. He told me,” continues Boswell, “‘I saw these lads had talents, and they were much with me.’ I hope they will pay a grateful tribute to his memory.” According to Dr. Carlyle, they found a far better way of showing their gratitude, for “they cured him of his contempt for the Presbyterian clergy, made him change or soften down many of his original opinions, and prepared him for becoming a most agreeable member of the Literary Society of Edinburgh, among whom he lived during the remainder of his life, admiring and admired.”[847] Besides his _Enquiry_, he published several other “small pieces of distinguished merit,” according to Boswell. National Debts and the Currency were among the subjects of which he treated.[848] Dr. Carlyle describes him as “rather a humourist than a man of humour; one who defended paradoxes and uncommon opinions with a copiousness and ingenuity that was surprising.” This part of his character would have endeared him to Johnson, who liked a tavern because, as he said, “wine there prompts me to free conversation, and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love; I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight.”[849] Though Johnson was fond of his society, and once said “that he was never in his company without learning something,” yet speaking of him on another occasion he said, “Sir, there is nothing conclusive in his talk.” Lord Elibank’s admiration of Johnson was very high. Yet he need not have gone so far as to flatter him at the expense of his own country. Having missed seeing him on his first visit to Edinburgh, he wrote to Boswell: “I could not persuade myself there was anything in Scotland worthy to have a summer of Samuel Johnson bestowed on it; but since he has done us that compliment, for heaven’s sake inform me of your motions. I will attend them most religiously, and though I should regret to let Mr. Johnson go a mile out of his way on my account, old as I am, I shall be glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.” Johnson, in his plain truthfulness, on the very day on which Lord Elibank wrote this extravagant letter, said that “he would go two miles out of his way to see Lord Monboddo.” As five hundred to two, so perhaps was Johnson’s accuracy of talk to Lord Elibank’s. To the mean way in which his lordship spoke of Scotland, as if it were beneath the great Englishman’s notice, I much prefer the spirit of his countryman, who, according to Boswell, “would say of Dr. Johnson, ‘Damned rascal! to talk as he does of the Scotch!’” However, he had none of that smallness of mind common enough among the high-born, which would not let him enjoy Johnson’s strong talk. He was “one of the great who sought his society. He well observed that if a great man procured an interview with him, and did not wish to see him more, it showed a mere idle curiosity, and a wretched want of relish for extraordinary powers of mind.” Such an idle curiosity and such a wretched want of relish were shown by George III.

[Sidenote: BALLENCRIEFF.]

The old house at Ballencrieff, in which Johnson “passed two nights and dined thrice,” as Boswell accurately records, is now a melancholy ruin. It was burnt down about twenty years ago. For many years previously, deserted by its owners, it had been left in the care of a woman who lived in an outbuilding, which in the old days had formed the kitchen. It was here, I believe, that were prepared those “performances of a nobleman’s French cook which so much displeased Johnson, that he exclaimed with vehemence, ‘I’d throw such a rascal into the river.’”[850] Though the flames no longer roared up the chimney as they had done for many a long year, still a fire was kept up and soot accumulated. One day the old woman tried to get rid of it by setting it alight, a primitive mode of chimney-sweeping not uncommon in that part of the country. A spark, it is conjectured, was carried into the main building through a broken pane, and falling on some straw brought in by the birds who nested there, set an upper room on fire. The summer had been unusually dry. The flames spread rapidly from one end of the house to the other; so fierce was the blaze that a large beech-tree which stood at some little distance was burnt also. Part of the house is evidently of considerable antiquity, being very solidly built, with vaulted chambers and walls many feet in thickness. In the year 1625, as I judge from an inscription on the wall, great additions were made. It is pleasantly placed, with meadow-land on three sides, and at a little distance from a fine range of hills, which boasts of a Roman camp and of a lofty column to one of Wellington’s generals. So strangely do the ages mingle here. From the upper windows on a clear day a delightful view must have been enjoyed of the Forth, with the little island of Inch Keith and the hills of Fife beyond. Near the house there is a row of yew-trees which could not have looked young in Johnson’s time, and holly hedges leading up to it, between which, perhaps, he walked, for they too look old. The land is in the occupation of a market-gardener, who cultivates it with a success which would have won his praise, and made him allow that something beside the sloe is brought to perfection in Scotland. The whole district abounds in fruitful gardens and orchards, and fine plantations of trees. As I looked at the luxuriance of growth, and meditated on the change that had been wrought in a century and a quarter, I thought that to Johnson, who had shown the nakedness of the land, a grateful and penitent people, who had profited by his exhortations, should raise a memorial as the god of gardens. According to a tradition which has come down to our time, a group of ash-trees was planted by Lord Elibank on his suggestion.[851] Planting had begun earlier than he thought. “It may be doubted,” he said, “whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.” The market-gardener told me that he had counted one hundred and ninety rings on some tall trees near the house, which had been cut down fourteen years before. This would show that they were planted not only before the Union, but also before the Revolution, for though a ring marks the growth of a year, yet in an old tree many of the rings cannot be distinguished.

As I wandered about the ruins, and listened to the jackdaws chattering overhead “with nothing conclusive in their talk,” how much I regretted that Boswell’s indolence had kept him from recording the conversation which passed here in those three November days between the old Jacobite lord and his famous guest.

Johnson’s tour was rapidly drawing to a close. Brundusium is at hand.

“Brundusium longæ finis chartæque viæque.”[852]

[Sidenote: SIR JOHN DALRYMPLE.]

He wrote from Edinburgh to Mrs. Thrale on Thursday, November 18: “I long to be at home, and have taken a place in the coach for Monday; I hope, therefore, to be in London on Friday, the 26th, in the evening. Please to let Mrs. Williams know.” On Saturday he accepted the invitation of Sir John Dalrymple, a cousin of Lord Hailes, and author of _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_, to visit him at his house at Cranston, twelve miles from Edinburgh on the middle road to Newcastle. There he was to be taken up by the London coach. Three years earlier Boswell had described Dalrymple as “a very knowing, lively companion;”[853] but his feelings towards him were changed. He had not worshipped the image which he had set up. Nevertheless, “he was ambitious,” Boswell writes, “of having such a guest; but as I was well assured, that at this very time he had joined with some of his prejudiced countrymen in railing at Dr. Johnson, and had said, he wondered how any gentleman of Scotland could keep company with him, I thought he did not deserve the honour; yet, as it might be a convenience to Dr. Johnson, I contrived that he should accept the invitation, and engaged to conduct him.” The convenience consisted in the fact that, as his house was on the London road, Johnson would not have to rise so early by two hours to catch the coach. Dalrymple had lately made a good deal of stir both in the world of literature and politics by the publication of his _Memoirs_. From these it had been learnt for the first time that Algernon Sidney had been a pensioner of the King of France. Horace Walpole had been roused to anger by the exposure of a man whose memory he revered. “Need I tell you,” he wrote to Mason, “that Sir John Dalrymple, the accuser of bribery, was turned out of his place of Solicitor of the Customs for taking bribes from brewers?”[854] Hume was astonished at “the rage against him, on account of the most commendable action in his life,” but he despised “his ranting, bouncing style.”[855] Johnson had an equal contempt for it, calling it “his foppery.” Boswell records in the spring of the year:

“I mentioned Sir John Dalrymple’s _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_, and his discoveries to the prejudice of Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, every body who had just notions of government thought them rascals before. It is well that all mankind now see them to be rascals.... This Dalrymple seems to be an honest fellow; for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing, it is the mere bouncing of a schoolboy: Great He! but greater She! and such stuff.’”

In describing the last scene between Lord and Lady Russell he had said, “they parted for ever—he great in this last act of his life, but she greater.”[856]