ribas[18]_, and wrote from
Edinburgh, as follows:--'Your very kind and agreeable favour of the
20th of April overtook me here yesterday, after having gone to Aberdeen,
which place I left about a week ago. I am to set out this day for
London, and hope to have the honour of paying my respects to Mr. Johnson
and you, about a week or ten days hence. I shall then do what I can, to
enforce the topick you mention; but at present I cannot enter upon it,
as I am in a very great hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within
an hour or two.'

He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the
northern scale. But, indeed, Mr. Johnson loved all that he heard, from
one whom he tells us, in his _Lives of the Poets_, Gray found 'a poet, a
philosopher, and a good man[19].'

My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some time.
The reason will appear, when we come to the isle of _Sky_[20]. I shall
then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself
and Mr. Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own
letters, as I relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is valuable
belonging to others, than for their own sake.

Luckily Mr. Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers[21], who was about to sail
for the East-Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at
Newcastle, and he conducted Dr. Johnson to that town. Mr. Scott, of
University College, Oxford, (now Dr. Scott[22], of the Commons,)
accompanied him from thence to Edinburgh, With such propitious convoys
did he proceed to my native city. But, lest metaphor should make it be
supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he travelled
in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his most favourite
amusements[23].

Dr. Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and
literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally
known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here
to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a
sincere and zealous Christian, of high church of England and monarchical
principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady
and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both
from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the
Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to
please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but