drink your grace's good health." I repeated the words
audibly, and with a steady countenance. This was, perhaps,
rather too much; but some allowance must be made for human
feelings. I made some remark that seemed to imply a belief in
_second sight_. The duchess said, "I fancy you will be _a
methodist_." This was the only sentence her grace deigned to
utter to me; and I take it for granted, she thought it a good
hit on _my credulity_ in the Douglas Cause.

'We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the
drawing-room, conversing. The duchess still continued to shew
the same marked coldness for me; for which, though I suffered
from it, I made every allowance, considering the very warm part
that I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in which she thought
her son deeply interested. Had not her grace discovered some
displeasure towards me, I should have suspected her of
insensibility or dissimulation. Her grace made Dr Johnson come
and sit by her, and asked him why he made his journey so late
in the year. "Why, madam (said he), you know Mr Boswell must
attend the Court of Session, and it does not rise till the
12th of August." She said, with some sharpness, "I _know
nothing_ of Mr Boswell." Poor Lady Lucy Douglas, to whom I
mentioned this, observed, "She knew _too much_ of Mr Boswell."
I shall make no remark on her grace's speech, etc., etc.'

In all this scene it will be confessed there is nothing but rudeness on
the part of the duchess, one of the beautiful Gunnings, intentional or
otherwise, while the kindly touches on Boswell's part, his allowance for
her supposed feelings over the trial, and his determination, for once,
to look a duchess in the face, are admirable. Bozzy was by birth a
gentleman, and there is not the slightest indication here of any want of
breeding or taste on his side.

At Dumbarton, steep as is the incline, Johnson ascended it. The
_Saracen's Head_, which had welcomed Paoli before now, received the
travellers. There was now no more sullen fuel or peat. 'Here am I,'
soliloquized the Rambler, with a leg upon each side of the grate, 'an
_Englishman_, sitting by a coal fire.'

'Jamie's aff the hooks noo;' said the old laird, as they drew near
Auchinleck, 'he's bringing doon an auld dominie.' Boswell begged of his
companion to avoid three topics of discourse on which he knew his father
had fixed opinions--Wh