Mr Scott came to breakfast, at which I introduced to Dr Johnson, and
him, my friend Sir William Forbes, now of Pitsligo; a man of whom too
much good cannot be said; who, with distinguished abilities and
application in his profession of a banker, is at once a good
companion, and a good Christian; which I think is saying enough. Yet
it is but justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous
illness, he was watched with the anxious apprehension of a general
calamity; day and night his house was beset with affectionate
inquiries; and, upon his recovery, Te deum was the universal chorus
from the hearts of his countrymen.

Mr Johnson was pleased with my daughter Veronica,[Footnote: "The
saint's name of Veronica was introduced into our family through my
great grandmother Veronica, Countess of Kincardine, a Dutch lady of
the noble house of Sommelsdyck, of which there is a full account in
Bayle's Dictionary. The family had once a princely right in Surinam.
The governour of that settlement was appointed by the States General,
the town of Amsterdam, and Sommelsdyck. The States General have
acquired Sommelsdyck's right; but the family has still great dignity
and opulence, and by intermarriages is connected with many other noble
families. When I was at the Hague, I was received with all the
affection of kindred. The present Sommelsdyck has an important charge
in the Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives. He has honoured me
with his correspondence for these twenty years. My great grandfather,
the husband of Countess Veronica, was Alexander, Earl of Kincardine,
that eminent Royalist whose character is given by Burnet in his
History of his own Times. From him the blood of Bruce flows in my
veins. Of such ancestry who would not be proud? And, as Nihil est,
nisi hoc sciat alter, is peculiarly true of genealogy, who would not
be glad to seize a fair opportunity to let it be known "] then a child