Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/65

Rh a party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.’ For some years before Johnson’s meeting with Boswell Lord Bute had been in power, and had the name of showing undue favour to his own countrymen. How little of real hostile feeling there was in Johnson’s light satire may be seen in his Journey to the Western Islands. He had a warm admiration, and a natural sympathy, for the feudal society of the Highlands, its courtesy and its pride. Richard Cumberland tells how he remonstrated with Johnson, urging that some passages in the Journey were too sharp upon a country and people that had showed him such generous hospitality: ‘Do you think so, Cumbey?’ said Johnson. ‘Then I give you leave to say, and you may quote me for it, that there are more gentlemen in Scotland than there are shoes.’ A people that is poor and proud could desire no finer compliment.

Boswell’s care for the unity of his picture is well seen in his treatment of Goldsmith. The title of his book committed him to something more than a portrait of Johnson. It runs: ''The Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll. D. comprehending an Account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century, during which he flourished. By James Boswell, Esq''. But Johnson was to have the centre of the picture, with no rival. Goldsmith himself complained of this. ‘One evening,’ says Boswell, ‘in a circle of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as entitled to the