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arrested, never knew that he was arrested, and I believe he never was in difficulties after the time when he relieved me. I loved him much; yet, in talking of his general character, I may have said, though I do not remember that I ever did say so, that as his generosity proceeded from no principle, but was a part of his profusion, he would do for a dog what he would do for a friend: but I never applied this remark to any particular instance, and certainly not to his kindness to me. If a profuse man, who does not value his money, and gives a large sum to a whore, gives half as much, or an equally large sum to relieve a friend, it cannot beesteemed as virtue. This was all that I could say of that gentleman; and, if said at all, it must have been said after his death. Sir, I would have gone to the world’s end to relieve him. The remark about the dog, if made by me, was such a sally as might escape one when painting a man highly.’

On Tuesday, September 23, Johnson was remarkably cordial to me. It being necessary for me to return to Scotland soon, I had fixed on the next day for my setting out, and I felt a tender concern at the thought of parting with him. He had, at this time, frankly communicated to me many particulars, which are inserted in this work in their proper places; and once, when I happened to mention that the expence of my jaunt would come to much more than I had computed, he said, ‘Why, Sir, if the expence were to be an inconvenience, you would have reason to regret it: but, if you have had the money to spend, I know not that you could have purchased as much pleasure with it in any other way.’

During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson and I frequently talked with wonderful pleasure of mere trifles which had occurred in our tour to the Hebrides; for it had left a most agreeable and lasting impression upon his mind.

He found fault with me for using the phrase to make money. ‘Don’t you see (said he,) the impropriety of it? To make money is to coin it: you should say get money.’ The phrase, however, is, I think, pretty current. But Johnson was at all times jealous of infractions upon the genuine English language, and prompt to repress colloquial barbarisms; such as, pledging myself, for undertaking; line, for department or branch, as, the civil line, the banking line. He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind. We may have an idea or image of a mountain, a tree, a building; but we cannot surely have an idea or image of an argument or proposition. Yet we hear the sages of the law ‘delivering their ideas upon the question under consideration;’ and the first speakers in parliament ‘entirely coinciding in the idea which has been ably stated by an honourable member;’ – or ‘reprobating an idea unconstitutional, and fraught with the most dangerous consequences to a great and free country.’ Johnson called this ‘modern cant.’

I perceived that he pronounced the word heard, as if spelt with a double e, heerd, instead of sounding it herd, as is most usually done. He said, his reason was, that if it were pronounced herd, there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the syllable ear, and he thought it better not to have that exception.

He praised Grainger’s Ode on Solitude, in Dodsley’s Collection, and repeated, with great energy, the exordium:727 –

‘O Solitude, romantick maid,

Whether by nodding towers you tread;

Or haunt the desart’s trackless gloom,

Or hover o’er the yawning tomb;

Or climb the Andes’ clifted side,

Or by the Nile’s coy source abide;

Or, starting from your half-year’s sleep,

From Hecla view the thawing deep;

Or, at the purple dawn of day,

Tadnor’s marble wastes survey’;

observing, ‘This, Sir, is very noble.’

In the evening our gentleman-farmer, and two others, entertained themselves and the company with a great number of tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have ‘Let ambition fire thy mind,’ played over