He read this day a good deal of my Journal, written in a small book with which he had supplied me, and was pleased, for he said, ’I wish thy books were twice as big.’  He helped me to fill up blanks which I had left in first writing it, when I was not quite sure of what he had said, and he corrected any mistakes that I had made.  ’They call me a scholar, (said he,) and yet how very little literature is there in my conversation.’  BOSWELL.  ’That, Sir, must be according to your company.  You would not give literature to those who cannot taste it.  Stay till we meet Lord Elibank.’

We had at last a good dinner, or rather supper, and were very well satisfied with our entertainment.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13.

Col called me up, with intelligence that it was a good day for a passage to Mull; and just as we rose, a sailor from the vessel arrived for us.  We got all ready with dispatch.  Dr. Johnson was displeased at my bustling, and walking quickly up and down.  He said, ’It does not hasten us a bit.  It is getting on horseback in a ship[831].  All boys do it; and you are longer a boy than others.’  He himself has no alertness, or whatever it may be called; so he may dislike it, as Oderunt hilarem tristes[832].

Before we reached the harbour, the wind grew high again.  However, the small boat was waiting and took us on board.  We remained for some time in uncertainty what to do:  at last it was determined, that, as a good part of the day was over, and it was dangerous to be at sea at night, in such a vessel, and such weather, we should not sail till the morning tide, when the wind would probably be more gentle.  We resolved not to go ashore again, but lie here in readiness.  Dr. Johnson and I had each a bed in the cabin.  Col sat at the fire in the fore-castle, with the captain, and Joseph, and the rest.  I eat some dry oatmeal, of which I found a barrel in the cabin.  I had not done this since I was a boy.  Dr. Johnson owned that he too was fond of it when a boy[833]; a circumstance which I was highly pleased to hear from him, as it gave me an opportunity of observing that, notwithstanding his joke on the article of OATS[834], he was himself a proof that this kind of food was not peculiar to the people of Scotland.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14.

When Dr. Johnson awaked this morning, he called ’Lanky!’ having, I suppose, been thinking of Langton; but corrected himself instantly, and cried, ’Bozzy!’ He has a way of contracting the names of his friends.  Goldsmith feels himself so important now, as to be displeased at it.  I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said, We are all in labour for a name to Goldy’s play,’ Goldsmith cried ’I have often desired him not to call me Goldy[835].’