t that time a very poor country, and the poor relation
has {148} never been a popular character anywhere. Consequently
Englishmen--and who was ever more English than Johnson?--commonly saw
in the newly arrived Scot a pauper and an upstart come to live upon his
betters: and they revenged themselves in the manner natural to rich
relations. To Johnson's tongue, too, the Scots offered the important
additional temptations of being often Whigs, oftener still
Presbyterians, and always the countrymen of Boswell. This last was
probably the one which he found it most impossible to resist. Happily
Boswell had the almost unique good sense to enjoy a good thing even at
the expense of his country or himself. It is to him, or perhaps at
him, that the majority of these Scotch witticisms were uttered: it is
by him that nearly all of them are recorded, from the original sally
which was the first sentence he heard from Johnson's lips, in reply to
his "Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help
it." "That, sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen
cannot help"--to the famous reply at the Wilkes dinner, when some one
said "Poor old England is lost,"--"Sir, it is not so much to be
lamented that old England is lost as that the Scotch have found it."

On this topic Johnson would always let {149} himself go. Again and
again the generous connoisseurship of Boswell describes not only the
witticism but the joyous gusto with which it was uttered. On no
subject is the great talker's amazing ingeniousness of retort more
conspicuous. When Boswell most justly criticized the absurd
extravagance of his famous sentence about the death of Garrick
eclipsing the gaiety of nations, Johnson replied, "I could not have
said more nor less. It is the truth; _eclipsed_, not _extinguished_;
and his death _did_ eclipse; it was like a storm." _Boswell_. "But
why nations? Did his gaiety extend further than his own nation?"
_Johnson_. "Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides
nations may be said--if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have
gaiety--which they have not." So when Johnson said the Scotch had none
of the luxuries or conveniences of life before the Union, and added,
"laughing," says Boswell, "with as much glee as if Monboddo had been
present," "We have taught you and we'll do the same in time to all
barbarous nations--to the Cherokees--and at last to the
Ourang-outangs," Boswell tried to m