side of the Tweed, as we have the benefit of promotion in England.  Such an interchange would make a beneficial mixture of manners, and render our union more complete.  Lord Chief Baron Orde was on good terms with us all, in a narrow country filled with jarring interests and keen parties; and, though I well knew his opinion to be the same with my own, he kept himself aloof at a very critical period indeed, when the Douglas cause shook the sacred security of birthright in Scotland to its foundation; a cause, which had it happened before the Union, when there was no appeal to a British House of Lords, would have left the great fortress of honours and of property in ruins[66].  When we got home, Dr. Johnson desired to see my books.  He took down Ogden’s Sermons on Prayer[67], on which I set a very high value, having been much edified by them, and he retired with them to his room.  He did not stay long, but soon joined us in the drawing room.  I presented to him Mr. Robert Arbuthnot, a relation of the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot[68], and a man of literature and taste.  To him we were obliged for a previous recommendation, which secured us a very agreeable reception at St. Andrews, and which Dr. Johnson, in his Journey, ascribes to ’some invisible friend[69].’

Of Dr. Beattie, Mr. Johnson said, ’Sir, he has written like a man conscious of the truth, and feeling his own strength[70].  Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled[71].  The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that, if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think, that though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong.  Sir, treating your adversary with respect, is striking soft in a battle.  And as to Hume,—­a man who has so much conceit as to tell all mankind that they have been bubbled[72] for ages, and he is the wise man who sees better than they,—­a man who has so little scrupulosity as to venture to oppose those principles which have been thought necessary to human happiness,—­is he to be surprized if another man comes and laughs at him?  If he is the great man he thinks himself, all this cannot hurt him:  it is like throwing peas against a rock.’  He added ‘something much too rough’ both as to Mr. Hume’s head and heart, which I suppress.  Violence is, in my opinion, not suitable to the Christian cause.  Besides, I always lived on good terms with Mr. Hume, though I have frankly told him, I was not clear that it was right in me to keep company with him.  ’But, (said I) how much better are you than your books!’ He was cheerful, obliging, and instructive; he was charitable to the poor; and many an agreeable hour have I passed with him[73]:  I have preserved some entertaining and interesting memoirs of him, particularly when he knew himself to be dying, which I may some time or other communicate to the world[74].  I shall not, however, extol him so very highly as Dr. Adam