Grampian Club > Boswelliana

BOSWELLIANA. 209
country, and boasting that it had a great many noble wUd pro-
spects. * Sir,' said Mr. Samuel Johnson, ' I believe you have a
great many noble wild prospects. Norway, too, has got some
prospects ; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild
prospects. But, sir, I believe the noblest prospect that a Scotch-
man ever sees is the road which leads him to England.'"
I was present.
" When the Duke de Nivernais was sent ambassador from
France to England, at the first inn in Britain he was charged
a most extravagant bill. The people of the house being asked
how they could use him so ill when he was a stranger, they
replied that was the very reason ; for as they chose to observe
Scripture rules, * He was a stranger,' said they, * and we took
him in.' " Captain Temple. *
" Boswell asked Mr. Samuel Johnson what was best to teach a
gentleman's children first. ' Why, sir,' said he, ' there is no
matter what you teach them first. It matters no more than
which leg you put first into your bretches {sic). Sir, you may
stand disputing which you shall put in first, but in the meantime
your legs are bare. No matter which you put in first so that
you put 'em both in, and then you have your bretches on. Sir,
while yovi think which of two things to teach a child first,
another boy, in the common course, has learnt both.' "
I was present.
" Mr. Samuel Johnson doubted much of the authenticity of
the poems of Ossian. Doctor Blair asked him if he thought
any man could describe these barbarous manners so well if he
had not lived at the time and seen them. 'Any man, sir,'
replied Mr. Johnson, — ' any man, woman, or child might have
done it.'" Doctor Blair.
* Captain Robert Temple was younger brother of Boswell's
intimate friend, the Eev. William Johnson Temple, rector of
Mamhead. (See supra, pp. 36, 47.)
P