Now I never heard that it was a custom to hang out a
_helmet_[799].' JOHNSON. 'Hang him up, hang him up.' BOSWELL. (humouring
the joke) 'Hang out his skull instead of a helmet, and you may drink ale
out of it in your hall of Odin, as he is your enemy; that will be truly
ancient. _There_ will be _Northern Antiquities_[800].' JOHNSON. 'He's a
_Whig_, Sir; a _sad dog_. (smiling at his own violent expressions,
merely for _political_ difference of opinion.) But he's the best
traveller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else does.'
I could not help thinking that this was too high praise of a writer who
had traversed a wide extent of country in such haste, that he could put
together only curt frittered fragments of his own, and afterwards
procured supplemental intelligence from parochial ministers, and others
not the best qualified or most impartial narrators, whose ungenerous
prejudice against the house of Stuart glares in misrepresentation; a
writer, who at best treats merely of superficial objects, and shews no
philosophical investigation of character and manners, such as Johnson
has exhibited in his masterly _Journey_, over part of the same ground;
and who it should seem from a desire of ingratiating himself with the
Scotch, has flattered the people of North-Britain so inordinately and
with so little discrimination, that the judicious and candid amongst
them must be disgusted, while they value more the plain, just, yet
kindly report of Johnson.
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