On Saturday, June 2, I set out for Scotland, and had promised to pay a
visit in my way, as I sometimes did, at Southill, in Bedfordshire, at
the hospitable mansion of 'Squire Dilly, the elder brother of my worthy
friends, the booksellers, in the Poultry. Dr. Johnson agreed to be of
the party this year, with Mr. Charles Dilly and me, and to go and see
Lord Bute's seat at Luton Hoe. He talked little to us in the carriage,
being chiefly occupied in reading Dr. Watson's[382] second volume of
_Chemical Essays_[383], which he liked very well, and his own _Prince
of Abyssinia_, on which he seemed to be intensely fixed; having told us,
that he had not looked at it since it was first published. I happened to
take it out of my pocket this day, and he seized upon it with avidity.
He pointed out to me the following remarkable passage[384]:--
'By what means (said the prince) are the Europeans thus powerful; or
why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or
conquest, cannot the Asiaticks and Africans invade their coasts, plant
colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The
same wind that carries them back would bring us thither.' 'They are more
powerful, Sir, than we, (answered Imlac,) because they are wiser.
Knowledge will always predominate over ignorance, as man governs the
other animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours, I know not
what reason can be given, but the unsearchable will of the
Supreme Being.'