or a long time little but rusticity,
their lively manner, and gay inciting appearance, pleased me so much,
that I thought for a moment I could have been a knight-errant for
them."] Mr. Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellers
at their inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth, and
anyone else would call brutality, by the very proper remark that he
had no notion of people being in earnest in good professions if their
practice belied them. When we think what well-known ground this was to
Lord Macaulay, it is impossible to suppress a wish that the great talker
had been at hand to avenge his grandfather and grand-uncle. Next morning
"Mr. Macaulay breakfasted with us, nothing hurt or dismayed by his last
night's correction. Being a man of good sense he had a just admiration
of Dr. Johnson." He was rewarded by seeing Johnson at his very best, and
hearing him declaim some of the finest lines that ever were written in a
manner worthy of his subject.

There is a tradition that, in his younger days, the minister of Inverary
proved his Whiggism by giving information to the authorities which
almost led to the capture of the young Pretender. It is perhaps a matter
of congratulation that this item was not added to the heavy account that
the Stuarts have against the Macaulay family. John Macaulay enjoyed
a high reputation as a preacher, and was especially renowned for his
fluency. In 1774 he removed to Cardross in Dumbartonshire, where, on the
bank of the noble estuary of the Clyde, he spent the last fifteen years
of a useful and honoured life. He was twice married. His first wife died
at the birth of his first child. Eight years afterwards, in 1757, he
espoused Margaret, daughter of Colin Campbell of Inveresragan, who
survived him by a single year. By her he had the patriarchal number of
twelve children, whom he brought up on the old Scotch system,--common
to the households of minister, man of business, farmer, and peasant
alike,--on fine air, simple diet, and a solid training in knowledge
human and divine. Two generations after, Mr. Carlyle, during a visit to
the late Lord Ashburton at the Grange, caught sight of Macaulay's face
in unwonted repose, as he was turning over the pages of a book. "I
noticed," said he, "the homely Norse features that you find everywhere
in the Western Isles, and I thought to myself 'Well! Anyone can see that
you are an honest good sort of fellow, made out of oatmeal.'"

S