urist attire,
recognise what in 1773 was thought fit and convenient costume.

'He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair
buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain
shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this
tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown
cloth greatcoat, with pockets which might have almost held the
two volumes of his folio _Dictionary_; and he carried in his
hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for
mentioning such minute particulars. Everything relative to so
great a man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam Smith, in
his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know
that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles.'

A companion vignette of himself is added by Boswell.

'A gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which was his
predominant passion. He was then in his thirty-third year, and
had been about four years happily married. His inclination was
to be a soldier; but his father had pressed him into the
profession of the law. He had travelled a good deal, and seen
many varieties of human life. He had thought more than anyone
had supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning
and knowledge. He had rather too little, than too much
prudence; and, his imagination being lively, he often said
things of which the effect was very different from the
intention. He resembled sometimes

'The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.'

The doctor who was thrifty over this tour had not thought it necessary
to bring his own black servant; but Boswell's man, Joseph Ritter, a
Bohemian, a fine stately fellow over six feet, who had been over much of
Europe, was invaluable to them in their journey. For this the valiant
Rambler had provided a pair of pistols, powder, and a quantity of
bullets, but the assurance of their needlessness had induced him to
leave them behind with the precious diary in the keeping of Mrs Boswell.

Such a tour was then a feat for a man of sixty-four, in a country which,
to the Englishman of his day, was as unknown as St Kilda is now to the
mass of Scotchmen. The London citizen who, says Lockhart, 'makes Loch
Lomond his wash-pot, and throws his shoe over Ben Nevis,' can with
difficulty imagine a journey in the Hebrides with rainy weather, in open
boats, or upon horseback o