where poor Mr. Smith sought shelter that day when the news reached Edinburgh that James II. had fled from London. He may well have been in danger, for "the rabble," writes Burnet, "broke into the church of Holyrood House, which had been adorned at a great charge to be a royal chapel, defaced it quite, and seized on some that were thought great delinquents."[1] When Lord Hailes came into the property, "his first care was to fit up the library a
LIBRARY, NEW HAILES.
magnificent room. The furnishing of it with an ample store of books was the great object of his ambition."[2] The library is now the drawing-room the most noble and learned drawing-room that I have ever seen, for the great and well-filled book-shelves still go round it from the floor almost to the lofty ceiling. If it was in this room that Johnson was received, no doubt he behaved as he did that April day, a year or two later, when he drove down to
