llowed
the phrase, at bottom much of a _John Bull_[36]; much of a blunt _true
born Englishman_[37]. There was a stratum of common clay under the rock
of marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating[38]; and he had a
great deal of that quality called _humour_, which gives an oiliness and
a gloss to every other quality.

I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world.--In my
travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I
never felt myself from home; and I sincerely love 'every kindred and
tongue and people and nation[39].' I subscribe to what my late truly
learned and philosophical friend Mr. Crosbie[40] said, that the English
are better animals than the Scots; they are nearer the sun; their blood
is richer, and more mellow: but when I humour any of them in an
outrageous contempt of Scotland, I fairly own I treat them as children.
And thus I have, at some moments, found myself obliged to treat even
Dr. Johnson.

To Scotland however he ventured; and he returned from it in great good
humour, with his prejudices much lessened, and with very grateful
feelings of the hospitality with which he was treated; as is evident
from that admirable work, his _Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland_, which, to my utter astonishment, has been misapprehended,
even to rancour, by many of my countrymen. To have the company of
Chambers and Scott, he delayed his journey so long, that the court of
session, which rises on the eleventh of August, was broke up before he
got to Edinburgh[41].

On Saturday the fourteenth of August, 1773, late in the evening, I
received a note from him, that he was arrived at Boyd's inn[42], at the
head of the Canongate. I went to him directly. He embraced me cordially;
and I exulted in the thought, that I now had him actually in Caledonia.
Mr. Scott's amiable manners, and attachment to our _Socrates_, at once
united me to him. He told me that, before I came in, the Doctor had
unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish cleanliness[43]. He then drank
no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made sweeter; upon
which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump of sugar, and
put it into it. The Doctor, in indignation, threw it out of the window.
Scott said, he was afraid he would have knocked the waiter down. Mr.
Johnson told me, that such another trick was played him at the house of
a lady in Paris[44]. He was to do me the honour to lodge under my roof.
I re