This comes of being a little
wrong-headed.' He carried the company along with him: and yet the truth
is, that if he had always worn a night-cap, as is the common practice,
and found the Highlanders did not wear one, he would have wondered at
their barbarity; so that my hit was fair enough.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30.
There was as great a storm of wind and rain as I have almost ever seen,
which necessarily confined us to the house; but we were fully
compensated by Dr. Johnson's conversation. He said, he did not grudge
Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the
first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure
in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet,
should make a figure in the House of Commons, merely by having the
knowledge of a few forms, and being furnished with a little occasional
information[728]. He told us, the first time he saw Dr. Young was at the
house of Mr. Richardson, the author of _Clarissa_. He was sent for, that
the doctor might read to him his _Conjectures on original
Composition_[729], which he did, and Dr. Johnson made his remarks; and
he was surprized to find Young receive as novelties, what he thought
very common maxims. He said, he believed Young was not a great scholar,
nor had studied regularly the art of writing[730]; that there were very
fine things in his _Night Thoughts_[731], though you could not find
twenty lines together without some extravagance.
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