and, before many hours had passed, the guest had said to the host
one of the very rudest things recorded by Boswell! Later on in
the same evening he atoned for his incivility by giving one of
the boys of the house a pocket Sallust, and promising to procure
him a servitorship at Oxford. Subsequently Johnson pronounced
that Mr. Macaulay was not competent to have written the book that
went by his name; a decision which, to those who happen to have
read the work, will give a very poor notion of my ancestor's
abilities.

The eldest son of old Aulay, and the grandfather of Lord
Macaulay, was John, born in the year 1720. He was minister
successively of Barra, South Uist, Lismore, and Inverary; the
last appointment being a proof of the interest which the family
of Argyll continued to take in the fortunes of the Macaulays. He,
likewise, during the famous tour in the Hebrides, came across the
path of Boswell, who mentions him in an exquisitely absurd
paragraph, the first of those in which is described the visit to
Inverary Castle. ["Monday, Oct. 25.--My acquaintance, the Rev.
Mr. John M'Aulay, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brother
to our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, and
accompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson to
the Duke of Argyll. We were shown through the house; and I never
shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the
ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After
seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner,
and gay inciting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought
for a moment I could have been a knight-errant for them."] Mr.
Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellers at
their inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth,