" "Well, well, I'll see the
gentleman," said Johnson. He walked towards the room. Mr. Boswell was
the person. This writer followed, with no small curiosity. "I find,"
said Mr. Boswell, "that I am come to London, at a bad time, when great
popular prejudice has gone forth against us North Britons; but, when I
am talking to you, I am talking to a large and liberal mind, and you
know that I cannot help coming from Scotland." "Sir," said Johnson, "no
more can the rest of your countrymen[x]."
He had other reasons that helped to alienate him from the natives of
Scotland. Being a cordial well-wisher to the constitution in church and
state, he did not think that Calvin and John Knox were proper founders
of a national religion. He made, however, a wide distinction between the
dissenters of Scotland and the separatists of England. To the former he
imputed no disaffection, no want of loyalty. Their soldiers and their
officers had shed their blood with zeal and courage in the service of
great Britain; and the people, he used to say, were content with their
own established modes of worship, without wishing, in the present age,
to give any disturbance to the church of England.
This he was, at all times, ready to admit; and, therefore, declared,
that, whenever he found a Scotchman, to whom an Englishman was as a
Scotchman, that Scotchman should be as an Englishman to him.
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