have had us last war, sir, to fight your battles!' JOHNSON.
'We should have had you for the same price, though there had been no
Union, as we might have had Swiss, or other troops. No, no, I shall
agree to a separation. You have only to _go home_.' Just as he had said
this, I, to divert the subject, shewed him the signed assurances of the
three successive Kings of the Hanover family, to maintain the
Presbyterian establishment in Scotland. 'We'll give you that (said he)
into the bargain.'

We next went to the great church of St. Giles, which has lost its
original magnificence in the inside, by being divided into four places
of Presbyterian worship[104]. 'Come, (said Dr. Johnson jocularly to
Principal Robertson[105],) let me see what was once a church!' We
entered that division which was formerly called the _New Church_, and of
late the _High Church_, so well known by the eloquence of Dr. Hugh
Blair. It is now very elegantly fitted up; but it was then shamefully
dirty[106]. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we came to
the great door of the Royal Infirmary, where upon a board was this
inscription, '_Clean your feet!_' he turned about slyly and said, 'There
is no occasion for putting this at the doors of your churches!'

We then conducted him down the Post-house stairs, Parliament-close, and
made him look up from the Cow-gate to the highest building in Edinburgh,
(from which he had just descended,) being thirteen floors or stories
from the ground upon the back elevation; the front wall being built upon
the edge of the hill, and the back wall rising from the bottom of the
hill several stories before it comes to a level with the front wall. We
proceeded to the College, with the Principal at our head. Dr. Adam
Fergusson, whose _Essay on the History of Civil Society[107]_ gives him
a respectable place in the ranks of literature, was with us. As the
College buildings[108] are indeed very mean, the Principal said to Dr.
Johnson, that he must give them the same epithet that a Jesuit did when
shewing a poor college abroad: '_Hae miseriae nostrae_.' Dr. Johnson
was, however, much pleased with the library, and with the conversation
of Dr. James Robertson, Professor of Oriental Languages, the Librarian.
We talked of Kennicot's edition of the Hebrew Bible[109], and hoped it
would be quite faithful. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I know not any crime so great
that a man could contrive to commit, as poisoning the sources of
eternal truth.