ers were committed.
_'There_,(said my lord,) _I see the hand of Providence_.' I was really
happy here. I saw in this nobleman the best dispositions and best
principles; and I saw him, _in my mind's eye_[319], to be the
representative of the ancient Boyds of Kilmarnock. I was afraid he might
have urged drinking, as, I believe, he used formerly to do; but he drank
port and water out of a large glass himself, and let us do as we
pleased[320]. He went with us to our rooms at night; said, he took the
visit very kindly; and told me, my father and he were very old
acquaintance;--that I now knew the way to Slains, and he hoped to see me
there again.

I had a most elegant room; but there was a fire in it which blazed; and
the sea, to which my windows looked, roared; and the pillows were made
of the feathers of some sea-fowl, which had to me a disagreeable smell;
so that, by all these causes, I was kept awake a good while. I saw, in
imagination, Lord Errol's father, Lord Kilmarnock[321] (who was beheaded
on Tower-hill in 1746), and I was somewhat dreary. But the thought did
not last long, and I fell asleep.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25.

We got up between seven and eight, and found Mr. Boyd in the
dining-room, with tea and coffee before him, to give us breakfast. We
were in an admirable humour. Lady Errol had given each of us a copy of
an ode by Beattie, on the birth of her son, Lord Hay. Mr. Boyd asked Dr.
Johnson how he liked it. Dr. Johnson, who did not admire it, got off
very well, by taking it out, and reading the second and third stanzas of
it with much melody. This, without his saying a word, pleased Mr. Boyd.
He observed, however, to Dr. Johnson, that the expression as to the
family of Errol,

'A thousand years have seen it shine,'

compared with what went before, was an anticlimax, and that it would
have been better

'Ages have seen,' &c.

Dr. Johnson said, 'So great a number as a thousand is better. _Dolus
latet in universalibus_. Ages might be only two ages.' He talked of the
advantage of keeping up the connections of relationship, which produce
much kindness. 'Every man (said he,) who comes into the world, has need
of friends. If he has to get them for himself, half his life is spent
before his merit is known. Relations are a man's ready friends who
support him. When a man is in real distress, he flies into the arms of
his relations. An old lawyer, who had much experience in making wills,
told me, t