'
I ventured to mention a person who was as violent a Scotsman as he was
an Englishman; and literally had the same contempt for an Englishman
compared with a Scotsman, that he had for a Scotsman compared with an
Englishman; and that he would say of Dr. Johnson, 'Damned rascal! to
talk as he does, of the Scotch.' This seemed, for a moment, 'to give him
pause[479].' It, perhaps, presented his extreme prejudice against the
Scotch in a point of view somewhat new to him, by the effect of
_contrast_.
By the time when we returned to Ashbourne, Dr. Taylor was gone to bed.
Johnson and I sat up a long time by ourselves.
He was much diverted with an article which I shewed him in the _Critical
Review_ of this year, giving an account of a curious publication,
entitled, _A Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies_, by John Rutty, M.D. Dr.
Rutty was one of the people called Quakers, a physician of some eminence
in Dublin, and authour of several works[480]. This Diary, which was kept
from 1753 to 1775, the year in which he died, and was now published in
two volumes octavo, exhibited, in the simplicity of his heart, a minute
and honest register of the state of his mind; which, though frequently
laughable enough, was not more so than the history of many men would be,
if recorded with equal fairness.
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