The professors of the university being informed of our arrival, Dr
Stevenson, Dr Reid, and Mr Anderson, breakfasted with us. Mr Anderson
accompanied us while Dr Johnson viewed this beautiful city. He had
told me, that one day in London, when Dr Adam Smith was boasting of
it, he turned to him and said, 'Pray, sir, have you ever seen
Brentford?' This was surely a strong instance of his impatience, and
spirit of contradiction. I put him in mind of it to-day, while he
expressed his admiration of the elegant buildings, and whispered him,
'Don't you feel some remorse?'
We were received in the college by a number of the professors, who
shewed all due respect to Dr Johnson; and then we paid a visit to the
principal, Dr Leechman, at his own house, where Dr Johnson had the
satisfaction of being told that his name had been gratefully
celebrated in one of the parochial congregations in the Highlands, as
the person to whose influence it was chiefly owing, that the New
Testament was allowed to be translated into the Erse language. It
seems some political members of the Society in Scotland for
propagating Christian Knowledge, had opposed this pious undertaking,
as tending to preserve the distinction between the Highlanders and
Lowlanders. Dr Johnson wrote a long letter upon the subject to a
friend, which being shewn to them, made them ashamed, and afraid of
being publickly exposed; so they were forced to a compliance. It is
now in my possession, and is, perhaps, one of the best productions of
his masterly pen.
Professors Reid and Anderson, and the two Messieurs Foulis, the Elzevirs
of Glasgow, dined and drank tea with us at our inn, after which the
professors went away; and I, having a letter to write, left my
fellow-traveller with Messieurs Foulis. Though good and ingenious men,
they had that unsettled speculative mode of conversation which is
offensive to a man regularly taught at an English school and university.
I found that, instead of listening to the dictates of the Sage, they had
teazed him with questions and doubtful disputations. He came in a
flutter to me, and desired I might come back again, for he could not
bear these men. 'O ho! sir,' said I, 'you are flying to me for refuge!'
He never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. He
answered, with quick vivacity, 'It is of two evils chooseing the least.'
I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon
his mind, closed my letter directly, and joined the company.
We supped at Professor Andersen's. The general impression upon my
memory is, that we had not much conversation at Glasgow where the
professors, like their brethren at Aberdeen, did not venture to expose
themselves much to the battery of cannon which they knew might play
upon them. Dr Johnson, who was fully conscious of his own superior
powers, afterwards praised Principal Robertson for his caution in this
respect. He said to me, 'Robertson, sir, was in the right. Robertson
is a man of eminence, and the head of a college at Edinburgh. He had a
character to maintain, and did well not to risk its being lessened.'