d or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape
to Streatham, or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was generally
the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to
resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud
bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from
mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the workhouse,
insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborne
and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs Desmoulins,
Polly, and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him.

The course of life which has been described was interrupted in Johnson's
sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read an account of
the Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was so
near him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as
in the middle ages. A wish to become intimately acquainted with a
state of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently
crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would have
overcome his habitual sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud,
and the cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt the
adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in August 1773,
Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into what
was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous
wilderness. After wandering about two months through the Celtic region,
sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and
sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight,
he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new
theories. During the following year he employed himself in recording his
adventures. About the beginning of 1775, his Journey to the Hebrides was
published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation
in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. The
book is still read with pleasure. The narrative is entertaining; the
speculations, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious; and
the style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat easier and more
graceful than that of his early writings. His prejudice against the
Scotch had at length become little more than matter of jest; and
whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the
kind and respectful h