Our first day went off very smoothly.  It rained, and we could not get out; but my father shewed Dr. Johnson his library, which in curious editions of the Greek and Roman classicks, is, I suppose, not excelled by any private collection in Great Britain.  My father had studied at Leyden, and been very intimate with the Gronovii, and other learned men there.  He was a sound scholar, and, in particular, had collated manuscripts and different editions of Anacreon, and others of the Greek Lyrick poets, with great care; so that my friend and he had much matter for conversation, without touching on the fatal topicks of difference.

Dr. Johnson found here Baxter’s Anacreon[1016], which he told me he had long enquired for in vain, and began to suspect there was no such book.  Baxter was the keen antagonist of Barnes[1017].  His life is in the Biographia Britannica[1018].  My father has written many notes on this book, and Dr. Johnson and I talked of having it reprinted.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3.

It rained all day, and gave Dr. Johnson an impression of that incommodiousness of climate in the west, of which he has taken notice in his Journey[1019]; but, being well accommodated, and furnished with variety of books, he was not dissatisfied.

Some gentlemen of the neighbourhood came to visit my father; but there was little conversation.  One of them asked Dr. Johnson how he liked the Highlands.  The question seemed to irritate him, for he answered, ’How, Sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak unfavourably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained?  Who can like the Highlands[1020]?  I like the inhabitants very well[1021].’  The gentleman asked no more questions.

Let me now make up for the present neglect, by again gleaning from the past.  At Lord Monboddo’s, after the conversation upon the decrease of learning in England, his Lordship mentioned Hermes, by Mr. Harris of Salisbury[1022], as the work of a living authour, for whom he had a great respect.  Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we were in our post-chaise, he told me, he thought Harris ‘a coxcomb.’  This he said of him, not as a man, but as an authour[1023]; and I give his opinions of men and books, faithfully, whether they agree with my own or not.  I do admit, that there always appeared to me something of affectation in Mr. Harris’s manner of writing; something of a habit of clothing plain thoughts in analytick and categorical formality.  But all his writings are imbued with learning; and all breathe that philanthropy and amiable disposition, which distinguished him as a man[1024].

At another time, during our Tour, he drew the character of a rapacious Highland Chief[1025] with the strength of Theophrastus or la Bruyere; concluding with these words:—­’Sir, he has no more the soul of a Chief, than an attorney who has twenty houses in a street, and considers how much he can make by them.’