Col also told us, that the same person having come up with a serjeant and twenty men, working on the high road, he entered into discourse with the serjeant, and then gave him sixpence for the men to drink.  The serjeant asked, ‘Who is this fellow?’.  Upon being informed, he said, ’If I had known who he was, I should have thrown it in his face.’  JOHNSON.  ’There is much want of sense in all this.  He had no business to speak with the serjeant.  He might have been in haste, and trotted on.  He has not learnt to be a miser:  I believe we must take him apprentice.’  BOSWELL.  ‘He would grudge giving half a guinea to be taught.’  JOHNSON.  ’Nay, Sir, you must teach him gratis.  You must give him an opportunity to practice your precepts.’

Let me now go back, and glean Johnsoniana.  The Saturday before we sailed from Slate, I sat awhile in the afternoon, with Dr. Johnson in his room, in a quiet serious frame.  I observed, that hardly any man was accurately prepared for dying; but almost every one left something undone, something in confusion; that my father, indeed, told me he knew one man, (Carlisle of Limekilns,) after whose death all his papers were found in exact order; and nothing was omitted in his will.  JOHNSON.  ’Sir, I had an uncle who died so; but such attention requires great leisure, and great firmness of mind.  If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still.  I am no friend to making religion appear too hard.  Many good people have done harm by giving severe notions of it.  In the same way, as to learning:  I never frighten young people with difficulties; on the contrary, I tell them that they may very easily get as much as will do very well.  I do not indeed tell them that they will be Bentleys!

The night we rode to Col’s house, I said, ’Lord Elibank is probably wondering what is become of us.’  JOHNSON.  ’No, no; he is not thinking of us.’  BOSWELL.  ’But recollect the warmth with which he wrote[853].  Are we not to believe a man, when he says he has a great desire to see another?  Don’t you believe that I was very impatient for your coming to Scotland?’ JOHNSON.  ’Yes, Sir; I believe you were; and I was impatient to come to you.  A young man feels so, but seldom an old man.’  I however convinced him that Lord Elibank, who has much of the spirit of a young man, might feel so.  He asked me if our jaunt had answered expectation.  I said it had much exceeded it.  I expected much difficulty with him, and had not found it.  ’And (he added) wherever we have come, we have been received like princes in their progress.’

He said, he would not wish not to be disgusted in the Highlands; for that would be to lose the power of distinguishing, and a man might then lie down in the middle of them.  He wished only to conceal his disgust.

At Captain M’Lean’s, I mentioned Pope’s friend, Spence.  JOHNSON.  ’He was a weak conceited man[854].’  BOSWELL.  ‘A good scholar, Sir?’ JOHNSON.  ‘Why, no, Sir.’  BOSWELL.  ‘He was a pretty scholar.’  JOHNSON.  ’You have about reached him.’