iggism, Presbyterianism, and Sir John Pringle. For
a time all went well. They walked about 'the romantick groves of my
ancestors,' and Bozzy discoursed on the antiquity and honourable
alliances of the family, and on the merits of its founder, Thomas, who
fell with King James at Flodden. But the storm broke, over the judge's
collection of medals, where that of Oliver Cromwell brought up Charles
the First and Episcopacy. All must regret that the writer's filial
feelings withheld the 'interesting scene in this dramatick sketch.' It
is the one _lacuna_ in the book. Sir John Pringle, as the middle term
in the debate, came off without a bruise, but the honours lay with Lord
Auchinleck. The man whose 'Scots strength of sarcasm' could retort on
Johnson, that Cromwell was a man that let kings know they 'had a _lith_
in their neck,' was likely to open new ideas to the doctor, whose
political opinions could not rank higher than prejudices. 'Thus they
parted,' says the son, after his father had, with his dignified
courtesy, seen Johnson into the postchaise; 'they are now in a happier
state of existence, in a place where there is no room for _Whiggism_.'
'I have always said,' the doctor maintained, 'the first Whig was the
Devil!'

Edinburgh was reached on November 9th. Eighty-three days had passed
since they left it, and for five weeks no news of them had been heard.
Writing from London, on his arrival, Johnson said, 'I came home last
night, without any incommodity, danger, or weariness, and am ready to
begin a new journey. I know Mrs Boswell wished me well to go.' The
irregular hours of her guest, and his habit of turning the candles
downward when they did not burn brightly, letting the wax run upon the
carpet, had not been quite to the taste of the hostess, who resented,
'what was very natural to a female mind,' the influence he possessed
over the actions of her husband.

We may well call this tour a spirited one, as Boswell had styled his own
Corsican expedition. No better book of travels in Scotland has ever been
written than Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. The accuracy
of his description, his eye for scenes and dramatic effects, have all
been fully borne witness to by those who have followed in their track,
and the fact of the book being day by day read by Johnson, during its
preparation, gives it an additional value from the perfect veracity of
its contents--'as I have resolved that the very journal which Dr Jo