mself
asked, during his subsequent visit to Scotland, of old Auchinleck,
Boswell's father. "God, Doctor," replied the vile Whig, "_he garred
kings ken they had a lith in their necks_."

For some time after this evening Goldsmith drops out of Boswell's
famous memoir; perhaps the compiler was not anxious to give him too
much prominence. They had not liked each other from the outset.
Boswell, vexed by the greater intimacy of Goldsmith with Johnson,
called him a blunderer, a feather-brained person; and described his
appearance in no flattering terms. Goldsmith, on the other hand, on
being asked who was this Scotch cur that followed Johnson's heels,
answered, "He is not a cur: you are too severe--he is only a bur. Tom
Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of
sticking." Boswell would probably have been more tolerant of Goldsmith
as a rival, if he could have known that on a future day he was to have
Johnson all to himself--to carry him to remote wilds and exhibit him
as a portentous literary phenomenon to Highland lairds. It is true
that Johnson, at an early period of his acquaintance with Boswell, did
talk vaguely about a trip to the Hebrides; but the young Scotch
idolater thought it was all too good to be true. The mention of Sir
James Macdonald, says Boswell, "led us to talk of the Western Islands
of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to
me a very romantic fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards
realised. He told me that his father had put Martin's account of
those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was
highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St.
Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed
out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed
his attention." Unfortunately Goldsmith not only disappears from the
pages of Boswell's biography at this time, but also in great measure
from the ken of his companions. He was deeply in debt; no doubt the
fine clothes he had been ordering from Mr. Filby in order that he
might "shine" among those notable persons, had something to do with
it; he had tried the patience of the booksellers; and he had been
devoting a good deal of time to work not intended to elicit immediate
payment. The most patient endeavours to trace out his changes of
lodgings, and the fugitive writings that kept him in daily bread, have
not been very successful. It is t