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��bookseller, in Russel-street, Covent-garden. Davies came run ning to him almost out of breath with joy : ' The Scots gentleman is come, Sir ; his principal wish is to see you ; he is now in the back-parlour.' * Well, well, I'll see the gentleman,' said Johnson. He walked towards the room. Mr. Boswell was the person. This writer followed with no small curiosity. ' I find,' said Mr. Boswell, ' that I am come to London at a bad time, when great popular prejudice has gone forth against us North Britons ; but when I am talking to you, I am talking to a large and liberal mind, and you know that I cannot help coming from Scotland' 1 Sir,' said Johnson, ' no more can the rest of your countrymen V
��He had other reasons that helped to alienate him from the natives of Scotland. Being a cordial well-wisher to the constitu tion in Church and State, he did not think that Calvin and John Knox 2 were proper founders of a national religion. He made,
��1 ' Mr. Murphy, in his Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson, has given an account of this meeting considerably different from mine, I am persuaded without any conscious ness of errour. His memory, at the end of nearly thirty years, has un doubtedly deceived him, and he supposes himself to have been pre sent at a scene, which he has prob ably heard inaccurately described by others. In my note taken on the very day, in which I am confident I marked every thing material that passed, no mention is made of this gentleman; and I am sure, that I should not have omitted one so well known in the literary world.' Life, i. 391, n. 4.
Boswell's account is as follows : ' Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated ; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, " Don't tell where
��I come from." "From Scotland," cried Davies roguishly. " Mr. John son, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it." .... He retorted, "That, Sir, I find is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help." '
The President of St. John's College, Oxford, remembers a London mer chant named Lindsey, who, on being introduced to Johnson, told him that he came from Scotland. ' There is no need to tell me that,' was the reply.
2 Life, v. 61.
3 By ' the Dissenters of Scotland ' Murphy means not the Episcopalians nor the Roman Catholics, but the members of the Established Church. Johnson was intolerant enough to refuse to attend the parish-church at Auchinleck. /. v. 384. Of Dr. Robertson he said: 'I will hear him if he will get up into a tree and preach ; but I will not give a sanction by my presence to a Presbyterian assembly.' /<$. v. 121. For an
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