We were then shewn a Latin inscription, proposed for this monument.  Dr. Johnson sat down with an ardent and liberal earnestness to revise it, and greatly improved it by several additions and variations.  I unfortunately did not take a copy of it, as it originally stood; but I have happily preserved every fragment of what Dr. Johnson wrote:—­

    Quisquis ades, viator[986],
    Vel mente felix, vel studiis cultus,
    Immorare paululum memoriae
    TOBIAE SMOLLET, M.D. 
    Viri iis virtutibus
    Quas in homine et cive
    Et laudes, et imiteris,

    Postquam mira—­
    Se ——­

    Tali tantoque viro, suo patrueli,

    Hanc columnam,
    Amoris eheu! inane monumentum,
    In ipsis Leviniae ripis,
    Quas primis infans vagitibus personuit,
    Versiculisque jam fere moriturus illustravit[987],
    Ponendam curavit[988].

We had this morning a singular proof of Dr. Johnson’s quick and retentive memory.  Hay’s translation of Martial was lying in a window.  I said, I thought it was pretty well done, and shewed him a particular epigram, I think, of ten, but am certain of eight, lines.  He read it, and tossed away the book, saying—­’No, it is not pretty well.’  As I persisted in my opinion, he said, ’Why, Sir, the original is thus,’—­(and he repeated it;) ’and this man’s translation is thus,’—­and then he repeated that also, exactly, though he had never seen it before, and read it over only once, and that too, without any intention of getting it by heart[989].

Here a post-chaise, which I had ordered from Glasgow, came for us, and we drove on in high spirits.  We stopped at Dunbarton, and though the approach to the castle there is very steep, Dr. Johnson ascended it with alacrity, and surveyed all that was to be seen.  During the whole of our Tour he shewed uncommon spirit, could not bear to be treated like an old or infirm man, and was very unwilling to accept of any assistance, insomuch that, at our landing at Icolmkill, when Sir Allan M’Lean and I submitted to be carried on men’s shoulders from the boat to the shore, as it could not be brought quite close to land, he sprang into the sea, and waded vigorously out.  On our arrival at the Saracen’s Head Inn, at Glasgow, I was made happy by good accounts from home; and Dr. Johnson, who had not received a single letter since we left Aberdeen[990], found here a great many, the perusal of which entertained him much.  He enjoyed in imagination the comforts which we could now command, and seemed to be in high glee.  I remember, he put a leg up on each side of the grate, and said, with a mock solemnity, by way of soliloquy, but loud enough for me to hear it, ‘Here am I, an ENGLISH man, sitting by a coal fire.’

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29.