Andrews. It has been
circulated, that, after grace was said in English, in the usual manner,
he with the greatest marks of contempt, as if he had held it to be no
grace in an university, would not sit down till he had said grace aloud
in Latin. This would have been an insult indeed to the gentlemen who
were entertaining us. But the truth was precisely thus. In the course of
conversation at dinner, Dr. Johnson, in very good humour, said, 'I
should have expected to have heard a Latin grace, among so many learned
men: we had always a Latin grace at Oxford. I believe I can repeat
it.'[196] Which he did, as giving the learned men in one place a
specimen of what was done by the learned men in another place.
We went and saw the church, in which is Archbishop Sharp's
monument.[197] I was struck with the same kind of feelings with which
the churches of Italy impressed me. I was much pleased, to see Dr.
Johnson actually in St. Andrews, of which we had talked so long.
Professor Haddo was with us this afternoon, along with Dr. Watson. We
looked at St. Salvador's College. The rooms for students seemed very
commodious, and Dr. Johnson said, the chapel was the neatest place of
worship he had seen. The key of the library could not be found; for it
seems Professor Hill, who was out of town, had taken it with him. Dr.
Johnson told a joke he had heard of a monastery abroad, where the key of
the library could never be found.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79