an hour every day; and
when I was moving about, to read diligently the great book of mankind.

On Wednesday, August 3, we had our last social evening at the Turk's
Head coffee-house, before my setting out for foreign parts. I had
the misfortune, before we parted, to irritate him unintentionally. I
mentioned to him how common it was in the world to tell absurd stories
of him, and to ascribe to him very strange sayings. JOHNSON. 'What do
they make me say, Sir?' BOSWELL. 'Why, Sir, as an instance very strange
indeed, (laughing heartily as I spoke,) David Hume told me, you
said that you would stand before a battery of cannon, to restore the
Convocation to its full powers.' Little did I apprehend that he had
actually said this: but I was soon convinced of my errour; for, with
a determined look, he thundered out 'And would I not, Sir? Shall the
Presbyterian KIRK of Scotland have its General Assembly, and the Church
of England be denied its Convocation?' He was walking up and down the
room while I told him the anecdote; but when he uttered this explosion
of high-church zeal, he had come close to my chair, and his eyes flashed
with indignation. I bowed to the storm, and diverted the force of it,
by leading him to expatiate on the influence which religion derived from
maintaining the church with great external respectability.

On Friday, August 5, we set out early in the morning in the Harwich
stage coach. A fat elderly gentlewoman, and a young Dutchman, seemed the
most inclined among us to conversation. At the inn where we dined, the
gentlewoman said that she had done her best to educate her children;
and particularly, that she had never suffered them to be a moment idle.
JOHNSON. 'I wish, madam, you would educate me too; for I have been an
idle fellow all my life.' 'I am sure, Sir, (said she) you have not been
idle.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, it is very true; and that gentleman there
(pointing to me,) has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His father
sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then came to
London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to Utrecht,
where he will be as idle as ever. I asked him privately how he could
expose me so. JOHNSON. 'Poh, poh! (said he) they knew nothing about you,
and will think of it no more.' In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked
violently against the Roman Catholicks, and of the horrours of the
Inquisition. To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but myse