aimed another blow or two at Scotch prejudices. To an unlucky compatriot
of Boswell's, who claimed for his country a great many "noble wild
prospects," Johnson replied, "I believe, sir, you have a great many,
Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for
prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you the noblest
prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to
England." Though Boswell makes a slight remonstrance about the "rude
grandeur of Nature" as seen in "Caledonia," he sympathized in this with
his teacher. Johnson said afterwards, that he never knew any one with
"such a gust for London." Before long he was trying Boswell's tastes by
asking him in Greenwich Park, "Is not this very fine?" "Yes, sir,"
replied the promising disciple, "but not equal to Fleet Street." "You
are right, sir," said the sage; and Boswell illustrates his dictum by
the authority of a "very fashionable baronet," and, moreover, a baronet
from Rydal, who declared that the fragrance of a May evening in the
country might be very well, but that he preferred the smell of a
flambeau at the playhouse. In more serious moods Johnson delighted his
new disciple by discussions upon theological, social, and literary
topics. He argued with an unfortunate friend of Boswell's, whose mind,
it appears, had been poisoned by Hume, and who was, moreover, rash
enough to undertake the defence of principles of political equality.
Johnson's view of all propagators of new opinions was tolerably simple.
"Hume, and other sceptical innovators," he said, "are vain men, and will
gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food
to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir,
is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone
to milk the bull." On another occasion poor Boswell, not yet acquainted
with the master's prejudices, quoted with hearty laughter a "very
strange" story which Hume had told him of Johnson. According to Hume,
Johnson had said that he would stand before a battery of cannon to