en I say a good thing.' BOSWELL. 'You are loud, Sir;
but it is not an effort of mind[237].'

Monboddo is a wretched place, wild and naked, with a poor old house;
though, if I recollect right, there are two turrets which mark an old
baron's residence. Lord Monboddo received us at his gate most
courteously; pointed to the Douglas arms upon his house, and told us
that his great-grandmother was of that family. 'In such houses (said
he,) our ancestors lived, who were better men than we.' 'No, no, my lord
(said Dr. Johnson). We are as strong as they, and a great deal
wiser[238].' This was an assault upon one of Lord Monboddo's capital
dogmas, and I was afraid there would have been a violent altercation in
the very close, before we got into the house. But his lordship is
distinguished not only for 'ancient metaphysicks,' but for ancient
_politesse_, '_la vieille cour_' and he made no reply[239].

His lordship was dressed in a rustick suit, and wore a little round
hat; he told us, we now saw him as _Farmer Burnet_[240], and we should
have his family dinner, a farmer's dinner. He said, 'I should not have
forgiven Mr. Boswell, had he not brought you here, Dr. Johnson.' He
produced a very long stalk of corn, as a specimen of his crop, and said,
'You see here the _loetas segetes_[241];' he added, that _Virgil_ seemed
to be as enthusiastick a farmer as he[242], and was certainly a
practical one. JOHNSON. 'It does not always follow, my lord, that a man
who has written a good poem on an art, has practised it. Philip Miller
told me, that in Philips's _Cyder_, a poem, all the precepts were just,
and indeed better than in books written for the purpose of instructing;
yet Philips had never made cyder[243].'

I started the subject of emigration[244]. JOHNSON. 'To a man of mere
animal life, you can urge no argument against going to America, but that
it will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man
of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and
his posterity for ages in barbarism.'

He and my lord spoke highly of Homer. JOHNSON. 'He had all the learning
of his age. The shield of Achilles shews a nation in war, a nation in
peace; harvest sport, nay, stealing[245].' MONBODDO. 'Ay, and what we
(looking to me) would call a parliament-house scene[246]; a cause
pleaded.' JOHNSON. 'That is part of the life of a nation in peace. And
there are in Homer such characters of heroes, and combinations of