'As he wrote a great number of verses, he sometimes by chance made good
ones, though he did not know it.'

He renewed his promise of coming to Scotland, and going with me to the
Hebrides, but said he would now content himself with seeing one or two
of the most curious of them. He said, 'Macaulay[145], who writes the
account of St. Kilda, set out with a prejudice against prejudices, and
wanted to be a smart modern thinker; and yet he affirms for a truth,
that when a ship arrives there, all the inhabitants are seized with a
cold[146].'

Dr. John Campbell[147], the celebrated writer, took a great deal of pains
to ascertain this fact, and attempted to account for it on physical
principles, from the effect of effluvia from human bodies. Johnson, at
another time[148], praised Macaulay for his '_magnanimity_' in asserting
this wonderful story, because it was well attested. A Lady of Norfolk,
by a letter to my friend Dr. Burney, has favoured me with the following
solution: 'Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so
very obvious as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr.
Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the authour. Reading the book
with my ingenious friend, the late Reverend Mr. Christian, of Docking--
after ruminating a little, "The cause, (says he,) is a natural one. The
situation of St. Kilda renders a North-East Wind indispensably necessary
before a stranger can land[149]. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an
epidemic cold." If I am not mistaken, Mr. Macaulay is dead; if living,
this solution might please him, as I hope it will Mr. Boswell, in return
for the many agreeable hours his works have afforded us.'

Johnson expatiated on the advantages of Oxford for learning[150]. 'There