In 1785 James Boswell published the journey of his tour of Scotland with Dr. Samuel Johnson. By the following year Samuel Collings and Thomas Rowlandson had produced a fine satire on it, which Boswell received in “good Humour.” The engravings below are Rowlandson’s after drawings by Collings.
— The Dr. was in high glee at Auchinleck. He and I breakfasted one day with the Rev. Mr. George Reid, who is now above eighty, yet is quite entire in the faculties of his mind. You can figure the scenes which the Dr. & I would have at Auchinleck. We returned to Edinburgh together. As encouragement for us it must be remarked that he is now in better health and spirits than he ever was in his life, & is never afflicted with melancholy.
James Boswell, letter to Thomas David Boswell (detail). MS Eng 1473
David Hume, Esq. died last autumn. I saw him not long before he died, and was shocked with his persisting or appearing to persist in infidelity. What a poor thing is our existence, & what pitiful creatures are we if there be no other state than this! I hope my dear David your piety is never impaired.—Read More:http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/houghton/2012/06/01/youve-got-mail-the-dr-was-in-high-glee-at-auchinleck/
Above, Dr. Johnson, with a walking stick, strolls with Boswell in the sewerless streets of Edinburgh. “I could not prevent his being assailed by the evening effluvia,” noted Boswell.
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…James Boswell wrote, “On Saturday the 14th of August 1773 late in the Evening I received a Note from him that he was arrived at Boyd’s Inn at the head of the Cannon-gate, I went to him directly. He embraced me cordially, and I exulted in the thought that I now had him actually in Caledonia.”…
—Scottifying the Palate from ‘Picturesque Beauties of Boswell, Part the First’, etched by Thomas Rowlandson, 1786 (etching) Samuel Collings—Read More:http://prints.culturelabel.com/art/378495/Scottifying_the_Palate_from_Picturesque_Beauties_of_Boswell_Part
Samuel Johnson wrote, “On the eighteenth of August we left Edinburgh, a city too well known to admit description, and directed our course northward, along the eastern coast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only long enough to shew us how much we lost at separation.”
For the next 83 days, Johnson and his young companion travelled the western islands of Scotland. Each kept a journal and each published an account of the trip… Read More:http://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2012/09/the_journey_of_dr_johnson_and.html
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