dows;' the study of the
historian, to which he turned fondly from the Parisian _salons_, is
represented in _Guy Mannering_ as the library of Pleydell with its fine
view from the windows, 'which commanded that incomparable prospect of
the ground between Edinburgh and the sea, the Firth of Forth with its
islands, and the varied shore of Fife to the northward.' Bozzy may have
been reticent about the former tenant; he was 'not clear that it was
right in me to keep company with him,' though he thought the man greater
or better than his books. No word then was sent to him, nor to Adam
Smith across the Forth to Kirkcaldy. They visited the Parliament House,
where Harry Erskine was presented to Johnson, and, having made his bow,
slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, 'for the sight of his bear.'
Holyrood and the University were inspected, and as they passed up the
College-Wynd, where Goldsmith in his medical student days in Edinburgh
had lived, Scott, as a child of two years, may have seen the party. On
the 18th they set out from the capital, with the Parthian shot from Lord
Auchinleck to a friend--'there's nae hope for Jamie, man; Jamie is gaen
clean gyte. What do you think, man? 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, man? A dominie, an auld dominie; he keepit a
schule and ca'ad it an acaadamy!' No more bitter taunt could have been
levelled against Johnson, with his memories of Edial, near Lichfield;
readers who may remember the munificent manner in which the heritors of
their day had provided for Ruddiman, Michael Bruce, and others, will
see the contempt that the old judge had felt for the past of the
Rambler. Johnson had left behind him in a drawer a volume of his diary;
and, as this would have been excellent copy for his projected _Life_, we
feel the temptation to which Boswell was exposed. 'I wish,' he says
naively, 'that female curiosity had been strong enough to have had it
all transcribed; which might easily have been done; and I think the
theft, being _pro bono publico_, might have been forgiven. But I may be
wrong. My wife told me she never once had looked into it. She did not
seem quite easy when we left her; but away we went!'

The character-sketch of Johnson, given at the opening of the book is
full of fine shading and touches; but the traveller who now follows them
on the journey will hardly, in comparison with his own to