And when Johnson was dead Boswell wrote his life. It is one of
the most wonderful lives ever written--perhaps the most
wonderful. And when we have read it we seem to know Johnson as
well as if we had lived with him. We see and know him in all his
greatness and all his littleness, in all his weakness and all his
might.
It was with Boswell that Johnson made his most famous journey,
his tour to Scotland. For, like his namesake, Ben, he too
visited Scotland. But he traveled in a more comfortable manner,
and his journey was a much longer one, for he went as far as the
Hebrides. It was a wonderful expedition for a man of sixty-four,
especially in those days when there were no trains and little
ease in the way of traveling, and when much of it had to be done
on rough ponies or in open boats.
On his return Johnson wrote an account of this journey which did
not altogether please some of the Scots. But indeed, although
Johnson did not love the Scots, there is little in his book at
which to take offense.
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