subject, written by them[692]?’ We were silent.  ’I’ll help you.  Forbes wrote very well; but I believe he wrote before episcopacy was quite extinguished.’  And then pausing a little, he said, ’Yes, you have Wishart AGAINST Repentance[693].’  BOSWELL.  ’But, Sir, we are not contending for the superior learning of our clergy, but for their superior assiduity.’  He bore us down again, with thundering against their ignorance, and said to me, ’I see you have not been well taught; for you have not charity.’  He had been in some measure forced into this warmth, by the exulting air which I assumed; for, when he began, he said, ‘Since you will drive the nail!’ He again thought of good Mr. M’Queen, and, taking him by the hand, said, ’Sir, I did not mean any disrespect to you[694].’

Here I must observe, that he conquered by deserting his ground, and not meeting the argument as I had put it.  The assiduity of the Scottish clergy is certainly greater than that of the English.  His taking up the topick of their not having so much learning, was, though ingenious, yet a fallacy in logick.  It was as if there should be a dispute whether a man’s hair is well dressed, and Dr. Johnson should say, ’Sir, his hair cannot be well dressed; for he has a dirty shirt.  No man who has not clean linen has his hair well dressed.’  When some days afterwards he read this passage, he said, ’No, Sir; I did not say that a man’s hair could not be well dressed because he has not clean linen, but because he is bald.’

He used one argument against the Scottish clergy being learned, which I doubt was not good.  ’As we believe a man dead till we know that he is alive; so we believe men ignorant till we know that they are learned.’  Now our maxim in law is, to presume a man alive, till we know he is dead.  However, indeed, it may be answered, that we must first know he has lived; and that we have never known the learning of the Scottish clergy.  Mr. M’Queen, though he was of opinion that Dr. Johnson had deserted the point really in dispute, was much pleased with what he said, and owned to me, he thought it very just; and Mrs. M’Leod was so much captivated by his eloquence, that she told me ’I was a good advocate for a bad cause.’

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24.

This was a good day.  Dr. Johnson told us, at breakfast, that he rode harder at a fox chace than any body[695].  ’The English (said he) are the only nation who ride hard a-hunting.  A Frenchman goes out, upon a managed[696] horse, and capers in the field, and no more thinks of leaping a hedge than of mounting a breach.  Lord Powerscourt laid a wager, in France, that he would ride a great many miles in a certain short time.  The French academicians set to work, and calculated that, from the resistance of the air, it was impossible.  His lordship however performed it.’