Chapter XVIII: Part 18

[354] I am not sure whether the Duke was at home. But, not having the honour of being much known to his grace, I could not have presumed to enter his castle, though to introduce even so celebrated a stranger. We were at any rate in a hurry to get forward to the wildness which we came to see. Perhaps, if this noble family had still preserved that sequestered magnificence which they maintained when catholicks, corresponding with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, we might have been induced to have procured proper letters of introduction, and devoted some time to the contemplation of venerable superstitious state. BOSWELL. Burnet (_History of his own Times_, ii. 443, and iii. 23) mentions the Duke of Gordon, a papist, as holding Edinburgh Castle for James II. in 1689.

[355] 'In the way, we saw for the first time some houses with fruit-trees about them. The improvements of the Scotch are for immediate profit; they do not yet think it quite worth their while to plant what will not produce something to be eaten or sold in a very little time.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 121.

[356] 'This was the first time, and except one the last, that I found any reason to complain of a Scottish table.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 19.

[357] The following year Johnson told Hannah More that 'when he and Boswell stopt a night at the spot (as they imagined) where the Weird Sisters appeared to Macbeth, the idea so worked upon their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However they learnt the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 50.

[358] See _ante_, p. 76.

[359] Murphy (_Life_, p. 145) says that 'his manner of reciting verses was wonderfully impressive.' According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 302), 'whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Horace would be long before they could endure to hear it repeated by another.'

[360] Then pronounced _Affléck_, though now often pronounced as it is written. Ante, ii. 413.

[361] At this stage of his journey Johnson recorded:--'There are more beggars than I have ever seen in England; they beg, if not silently, yet very modestly.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 122. See ante, p. 75, note 1.

[362] Duncan's monument; a huge column on the roadside near Fores, more than twenty feet high, erected in commemoration of the final retreat of the Danes from Scotland, and properly called Swene's Stone. WALTER SCOTT.

[363] Swift wrote to Pope on May 31, 1737:--'Pray who is that Mr. Glover, who writ the epick poem called _Leonidas_, which is reprinting here, and has great vogue?' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xx. 121. 'It passed through four editions in the first year of its publication (1737-8).' Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. p. 902. Horace Walpole, in 1742, mentions _Leonidas_ Glover (_Letters_, i. 117); and in 1785 Hannah More writes (_Memoirs_, i. 405):--'I was much amused with hearing old Leonidas Glover sing his own fine ballad of _Hosier's Ghost_, which was very affecting. He is past eighty [he was seventy-three]. Mr. Walpole coming in just afterwards, I told him how highly I had been pleased. He begged me to entreat for a repetition of it. It was the satire conveyed in this little ballad upon the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole's ministry which is thought to have been a remote cause of his resignation. It was a very curious circumstance to see his son listening to the recital of it with so much complacency.'

[364] See ante, i. 125.

[365] See _ante_, i. 456, and _post_, Sept. 22.

[366] See _ante_, ii. 82, and _post_, Oct. 27.

[367] 'Nairne is the boundary in this direction between the highlands and lowlands; and until within a few years both English and Gaelic were spoken here. One of James VI.'s witticisms was to boast that in Scotland he had a town "sae lang that the folk at the tae end couldna understand the tongue spoken at the tother."' Murray's _Handbook for Scotland_, ed. 1867, p. 308. 'Here,' writes Johnson (_Works_, ix. 21), 'I first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language.' As he heard the girl singing Erse, so Wordsworth thirty years later heard The Solitary Reaper:--

'Yon solitary Highland Lass Reaping and singing by herself.'

[368]

'Verse softens toil, however rude the sound;
She feels no biting pang the while she sings;
Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,
Revolves the sad vicissitude of things.'

_Contemplation._ London: Printed for R. Dodsley in Pall-mall, and sold by M. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster-Row, 1753.

The author's name is not on the title-page. In the _Brit. Mus. Cata._ the poem is entered under its title. Mr. Nichols (_Lit. Illus._ v. 183) says that the author was the Rev. Richard Gifford [not Giffard] of Balliol College, Oxford. He adds that 'Mr. Gifford mentioned to him with much satisfaction the fact that Johnson quoted the poem in his _Dictionary_.' It was there very likely that Boswell had seen the lines. They are quoted under _wheel_ (with changes made perhaps intentionally by Johnson), as follows:

'Verse sweetens care however rude the sound;
All at her work the village maiden sings;
Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,
Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.'

_Contemplation_, which was published two years after Gray's _Elegy_, was suggested by it. The rising, not the parting day, is described. The following verse precedes the one quoted by Johnson:--

'Ev'n from the straw-roofed cot the note of joy
Flows full and frequent, as the village-fair,
Whose little wants the busy hour employ,
Chanting some rural ditty soothes her care.'

Bacon, in his _Essay Of Vicissitude of Things_ (No. 58), says:--'It is not good to look too long upon these turning _wheels of vicissitude_ lest we become _giddy_' This may have suggested Gifford's last two lines. _Reflections on a Grave, &c._ (_ante_, ii. 26), published in 1766, and perhaps written in part by Johnson, has a line borrowed from this poem:--

'These all the hapless state of mortals show
The sad vicissitude of things below.'

Cowper, _Table-Talk_, ed. 1786, i. 165, writes of

'The sweet vicissitudes of day and night.'

The following elegant version of these lines by Mr. A. T. Barton, Fellow and Tutor of Johnson's own College, will please the classical reader:--

Musa levat duros, quamvis rudis ore, labores;
Inter opus cantat rustica Pyrrha suum;
Nec meminit, secura rotam dum versat euntem,
Non aliter nostris sortibus ire vices.

[369] He was the brother of the Rev. John M'Aulay (_post_, Oct. 25), the grandfather of Lord Macaulay.

[370] See _ante_, ii. 51.

[371] In Scotland, there is a great deal of preparation before administering the sacrament. The minister of the parish examines the people as to their fitness, and to those of whom he approves gives little pieces of tin, stamped with the name of the parish as _tokens_, which they must produce before receiving it. This is a species of priestly power, and sometimes may be abused. I remember a lawsuit brought by a person against his parish minister, for refusing him admission to that sacred ordinance. BOSWELL.

[372] See _ post_, Sept. 13 and 28.

[373] Mr. Trevelyan (_Life of Macaulay_, ed.1877, i. 6) says: 'Johnson pronounced that Mr. Macaulay was not competent to have written the book that went by his name; a decision which, to those who happen to have read the work, will give a very poor notion my ancestor's abilities.'

[374]

'The thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman.'

_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 3.

[375] According to Murray's _Handbook,_ ed. 1867, p. 308, no part of the castle is older than the fifteenth century.

[376] See _post_, Nov. 5.

[377] The historian. _Ante_, p. 41.

[378] See _ante_, iii. 336, and _post_, Nov. 7.

[379] See _post_, Oct. 27.

[380] Baretti was the Italian. Boswell disliked him (_ante_, ii. 98 note), and perhaps therefore described him merely as 'a man of _some_ literature.' Baretti complained to Malone that 'the story as told gave an unfair representation of him.' He had, he said, 'observed to Johnson that the petition _lead us not into temptation_ ought rather to be addressed to the tempter of mankind than a benevolent Creator. "Pray, Sir," said Johnson, "do you know who was the author of the Lord's Prayer?" Baretti, who did not wish to get into any serious dispute and who appears to be an Infidel, by way of putting an end to the conversation, only replied:--"Oh, Sir, you know by _our_ religion (Roman Catholic) we are not permitted to read the Scriptures. You can't therefore expect an answer."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 399. Sir Joshua Reynolds, on hearing this from Malone, said:--'This turn which Baretti now gives to the matter was an after-thought; for he once said to me myself:--"There are various opinions about the writer of that prayer; some give it to St. Augustine, some to St. Chrysostom, &c. What is your opinion? "' _Ib_. p. 394. Mrs. Piozzi says that she heard 'Baretti tell a clergyman the story of Dives and Lazarus as the subject of a poem he once had composed in the Milanese district, expecting great credit for his powers of invention.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 348.

[381] Goldsmith (_Present Slate of Polite Learning_, chap. 13) thus wrote of servitorships: 'Surely pride itself has dictated to the fellows of our colleges the absurd passion of being attended at meals, and on other public occasions, by those poor men who, willing to be scholars, come in upon some charitable foundation. It implies a contradiction for men to be at once learning the _liberal_ arts, and at the same time treated as _slaves_; at once studying freedom and practising servitude.' Yet a young man like Whitefield was willing enough to be a servitor. He had been a waiter in his mother's inn; he was now a waiter in a college, but a student also. See my _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics_, p. 27.

[382] Dr. Johnson did not neglect what he had undertaken. By his interest with the Rev. Dr. Adams, master of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was educated for some time, he obtained a servitorship for young M'Aulay. But it seems he had other views; and I believe went abroad. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 380.

[383] 'I once drank tea,' writes Lamb, 'in company with two Methodist divines of different persuasions. Before the first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he chose to _say anything_. It seems it is the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an explanation, with little less importance he made answer that it was not a custom known in his church.' _Essay on Grace before Meat_.

[384] He could not bear to have it thought that, in any instance whatever, the Scots are more pious than the English. I think grace as proper at breakfast as at any other meal. It is the pleasantest meal we have. Dr. Johnson has allowed the peculiar merit of breakfast in Scotland. BOSWELL. 'If an epicure could remove by a wish in quest of sensual gratification, wherever he had supped he would breakfast in Scotland.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 52.

[385] Bruce, the Abyssinian Traveller, found in the annals of that region a king named _Brus_, which he chooses to consider the genuine orthography of the name. This circumstance occasioned some mirth at the court of Gondar. WALTER SCOTT.

[386] See _ante_, ii. 169, note 2, and _post_, Sept. 2. Johnson, so far as I have observed, spelt the name _Boswel_.

[387] Sir Eyre Coote was born in 1726. He took part in the battle of Plassey in 1757, and commanded at the reduction of Pondicherry in 1761. In 1770-71 he went by land to Europe. In 1780 he took command of the English army against Hyder Ali, whom he repeatedly defeated. He died in 1783. Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_. x. 236. There is a fine description of him in Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, iii. 385.

[388] See _ante_, iii. 361.

[389] Reynolds wrote of Johnson:--'He sometimes, it must be confessed, covered his ignorance by generals rather than appear ignorant' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457.

[390] 'The barracks are very handsome, and form several regular and good streets.' Pennant's _Tour_, p. 144.

[391] See _ante_, p. 45.

[392] Here Dr. Johnson gave us part of a conversation held between a Great Personage and him, in the library at the Queen's Palace, in the course of which this contest was considered. I have been at great pains to get that conversation as perfectly preserved as possible. It may perhaps at some future time be given to the publick. BOSWELL. For 'a Great Personage' see _ante_, i. 219; and for the conversation, ii. 33.

[393] See _ante_, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 4 and June 15, 1784.

[394] See _ante_, i. 167, note 1.

[395] Booth acted _Cato_, and Wilks Juba when Addison's _Cato_ was brought out. Pope told Spence that 'Lord Bolingbroke's carrying his friends to the house, and presenting Booth with a purse of guineas for so well representing the character of a person "who rather chose to die than see a general for life," carried the success of the play much beyond what they ever expected.' Spence's _Anec_. p. 46. Bolingbroke alluded to the Duke of Marlborough. Pope in his _Imitations of Horace_, 2 Epist. i. 123 introduces 'well-mouth'd Booth.'

[396] See _ante_, iii. 35, and under Sept. 30, 1783.

[397] 'Garrick used to tell, that Johnson said of an actor who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lichfield, "There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;" when, in fact, according to Garrick's account, "he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon _boards_."' _Ante_, ii. 465.

[398] Mrs. Cibber was the sister of Dr. Arne the musical composer, and the wife of Theophilus Cibber, Colley Cibber's son. She died in 1766, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Baker's _Biog. Dram._ i. 123.

[399] See _ante_, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[400] See _ante_, i. 197, and ii. 348.

[401] Johnson had set him to repeat the ninth commandment, and had with great glee put him right in the emphasis. _Ante_, i. 168.

[402] Act iii. sc. 2.

[403] Boswell's suggestion is explained by the following passage in Johnson's _Works_, viii. 463:--'Mallet was by his original one of the Macgregors, a clan that became about sixty years ago, under the conduct of Robin Roy, so formidable and so infamous for violence and robbery, that the name was annulled by a legal abolition.'

[404] See _ante_, iii. 410, where he said to an Irish gentleman:--'Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them.'

[405] It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson read this gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me. BOSWELL. See _post_, Oct. 12, note.

[406] _St. Matthew_, v. 44.

[407] It is odd that Boswell did not suspect the parson, who, no doubt, had learnt the evening before from Mr. Keith that the two travellers would be present at his sermon. Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 283) says that one day at Sir Joshua's dinner-table, when his host praised Malone very highly for his laborious edition of _Shakespeare_, he (Northcote) 'rather hastily replied, "What a very despicable creature must that man be who thus devotes himself, and makes another man his god;" when Boswell, who sat at my elbow, and was not in my thoughts at the time, cried out "Oh! Sir Joshua, then that is me!"'

[408] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 23) more cautiously says:--'Here is a castle, called the castle of Macbeth.'

[409] 'This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed _repose_. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks that where those birds most breed and haunt the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakespeare asked himself, what is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented. This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestick life.' Johnson's _Shakespeare_. Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 144-151) quotes other notes by Reynolds.

[410] In the original _senses_. Act i, sc. 6.

[411] Act i. sc. 5.

[412] Boswell forgets _scoundrelism_, _ante_, p. 106, which, I suppose, Johnson coined.

[413] See _ante_, ii. 154, note 3. Peter Paragraph is one of the characters in Foote's Comedy of _The Orators_.

[414] When upon the subject of this _peregrinity_, he told me some particulars concerning the compilation of his _Dictionary_, and concerning his throwing off Lord Chesterfield's patronage, of which very erroneous accounts have been circulated. These particulars, with others which he afterwards gave me,--as also his celebrated letter to Lord Chesterfield, which he dictated to me,--I reserve for his _Life._ BOSWELL. See _ante,_ i. 221, 261.

[415] See _ante,_ ii. 326, 371, and v. 18.

[416] It is the third edition, published in 1778, that first bears this title. The first edition was published in 1761, and the second in 1762.

[417] 'One of them was a man of great liveliness and activity, of whom his companion said that he would tire any horse in Inverness. Both of them were civil and ready-handed Civility seems part of the national character of Highlanders.' _Works,_ ix. 25.

[418] 'The way was very pleasant; the rock out of which the road was cut was covered with birch trees, fern, and heath. The lake below was beating its bank by a gentle wind.... In one part of the way we had trees on both sides for perhaps half a mile. Such a length of shade, perhaps, Scotland cannot shew in any other place.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 123. The travellers must have passed close by the cottage where James Mackintosh was living, a child of seven.

[419] Boswell refers, I think, to a passage in act iv. sc. I of Farquhar's Comedy, where Archer says to Mrs. Sullen:--'I can't at this distance, Madam, distinguish the figures of the embroidery.' This passage is copied by Goldsmith in _She Stoops to Conquer_, act iii., where Marlow says to Miss Hardcastle: 'Odso! then you must shew me your embroidery.'

[420] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 28) gives a long account of this woman. 'Meal she considered as expensive food, and told us that in spring, when the goats gave milk, the children could live without it.'

[421] It is very odd, that when these roads were made, there was no care taken for _Inns_. The _King's House_, and the _General's Hut_, are miserable places; but the project and plans were purely military. WALTER SCOTT. Johnson found good entertainment here, 'We had eggs and bacon and mutton, with wine, rum, and whisky. I had water.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 124.

[422] 'Mr. Boswell, who between his father's merit and his own is sure of reception wherever he comes, sent a servant before,' &c. Johnson's _Works_, ix. 30.

[423] On April 6, 1777, Johnson noted down: 'I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.' _Pr. and Med._ p.159. On Nov. 21, 1778, he wrote to Boswell: 'The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.' _Ante_, iii. 369.

[424] See _ante_, iii. 246.

[425] A McQueen is a Highland mode of expression. An Englishman would say _one_ McQueen. But where there are _clans_ or _tribes_ of men, distinguished by _patronymick_ surnames, the individuals of each are considered as if they were of different species, at least as much as nations are distinguished; so that a _McQueen_, a _McDonald_, a _McLean_, is said, as we say a Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard. BOSWELL.

[426] 'I praised the propriety of his language, and was answered that I need not wonder, for he had learnt it by grammar. By subsequent opportunities of observation I found that my host's diction had nothing peculiar. Those Highlanders that can speak English commonly speak it well, with few of the words and little of the tone by which a Scotchman is distinguished ... By their Lowland neighbours they would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 31. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale: 'This man's conversation we were glad of while we staid. He had been out, as they call it, in forty-five, and still retained his old opinions.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 130.

[427] By the Chevalier Ramsay.

[428] 'From him we first heard of the general dissatisfaction which is now driving the Highlanders into the other hemisphere; and when I asked him whether they would stay at home if they were well treated, he answered with indignation that no man willingly left his native country. Johnson's _Works_, ix. 33. See _ante_, p. 27.

[429] 'The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.' _Ib._ v. 49.

[430] Four years later, three years after Goldsmith's death, Johnson 'observed in Lord Scarsdale's dressing-room Goldsmith's _Animated Nature_; and said, "Here's our friend. The poor doctor would have been happy to hear of this."' _Ante_, iii.162.

[431] See _ante_, i. 348 and ii. 438 and _post_, Sept. 23. Mackintosh says: 'Johnson's idea that a ship was a prison with the danger of drowning is taken from Endymion Porter's _Consolation to Howell_ on his imprisonment in the _Fleet_, and was originally suggested by the pun.' _Life of Mackintosh_, ii. 83. The passage to which he refers is found in Howell's letter of Jan. 2, 1646 (book ii. letter 39), in which he writes to Porter:--'You go on to prefer my captivity in this _Fleet_ to that of a voyager at sea, in regard that he is subject to storms and springing of leaks, to pirates and picaroons, with other casualties.'

[432] See _ante_, iii. 242.

[433] This book has given rise to much enquiry, which has ended in ludicrous surprise. Several ladies, wishing to learn the kind of reading which the great and good Dr. Johnson esteemed most fit for a young woman, desired to know what book he had selected for this Highland nymph. 'They never adverted (said he) that I had no _choice_ in the matter. I have said that I presented her with a book which I _happened_ to have about me.' And what was this book? My readers, prepare your features for merriment. It was _Cocker's Arithmetick_!--Wherever this was mentioned, there was a loud laugh, at which Johnson, when present, used sometimes to be a little angry. One day, when we were dining at General Oglethorpe's, where we had many a valuable day, I ventured to interrogate him. 'But, Sir, is it not somewhat singular that you should _happen_ to have _Cocker's Arithmetick_ about you on your journey? What made you buy such a book at Inverness?' He gave me a very sufficient answer. 'Why, Sir, if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey, let it be a book of science. When you have read through a book of entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you; but a book of science is inexhaustible.' BOSWELL.

Johnson thus mentions his gift: 'I presented her with a book which I happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to think that she forgets me.' _Works_, ix. 32. The first edition of _Cocker's Arithmetic_ was published about 1660. _Brit. Mus. Cata._ Though Johnson says that 'a book of science is inexhaustible,' yet in _The Rambler_, No. 154, he asserts that 'the principles of arithmetick and geometry may be comprehended by a close attention in a few days.' Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 77) that 'when Mr. Johnson felt his fancy disordered, his constant recurrence was to arithmetic; and one day that he was confined to his chamber, and I enquired what he had been doing to divert himself, he shewed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it; no other indeed than that the national debt, computing it at £180,000,000, would, if converted into silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of the whole earth.' See _ante_, iii. 207, and iv. 171, note 3.

[434] Swift's _Works_ (1803), xxiv. 63.

[435] 'We told the soldiers how kindly we had been treated at the garrison, and, as we were enjoying the benefit of their labours, begged leave to shew our gratitude by a small present.... They had the true military impatience of coin in their pockets, and had marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought. Having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their goodwill we went to them, where they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift.' _Works_, ix. 31-2.

[436]

'Why rather sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee.' &c.

2 _Henry IV._ act iii. sc. 1.

[437] Spain, in 1719, sent a strong force under the Duke of Ormond to Scotland in behalf of the Chevalier. Owing to storms only a few hundred men landed. These were joined by a large body of Highlanders, but being attacked by General Wightman, the clansmen dispersed and the Spaniards surrendered. Smollett's _England_, ed. 1800, ii. 382.

[438] Boswell mentions this _ante_, i. 41, as a proof of Johnson's 'perceptive quickness.'

[439] Dr. Johnson, in his _Journey_, thus beautifully describes his situation here:--'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head; but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either side, were high hills, which, by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour well, I know not; for here I first conceived the thought of this narration.' The _Critical Reviewers_, with a spirit and expression worthy of the subject, say,--'We congratulate the publick on the event with which this quotation concludes, and are fully persuaded that the hour in which the entertaining traveller conceived this narrative will be considered, by every reader of taste, as a fortunate event in the annals of literature. Were it suitable to the task in which we are at present engaged, to indulge ourselves in a poetical flight, we would invoke the winds of the Caledonian Mountains to blow for ever, with their softest breezes, on the bank where our author reclined, and request of Flora, that it might be perpetually adorned with the gayest and most fragrant productions of the year.' BOSWELL. Johnson thus described the scene to Mrs. Thrale:--'I sat down to take notes on a green bank, with a small stream running at my feet, in the midst of savage solitude, with mountains before me and on either hand covered with heath. I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected, but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be put in motion.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 131.

[440] 'The villagers gathered about us in considerable numbers, I believe without any evil intention, but with a very savage wildness of aspect and manner.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 38.

[441] The M'Craas, or Macraes, were since that time brought into the king's army, by the late Lord Seaforth. When they lay in Edinburgh Castle in 1778, and were ordered to embark for Jersey, they with a number of other men in the regiment, for different reasons, but especially an apprehension that they were to be sold to the East-India Company, though enlisted not to be sent out of Great-Britain without their own consent, made a determined mutiny, and encamped upon the lofty mountain, _Arthur's seat_, where they remained three days and three nights; bidding defiance to all the force in Scotland. At last they came down, and embarked peaceably, having obtained formal articles of capitulation, signed by Sir Adolphus Oughton, commander in chief, General Skene, deputy commander, the Duke of Buccleugh, and the Earl of Dunmore, which quieted them. Since the secession of the Commons of Rome to the _Mons Sacer_, a more spirited exertion has not been made. I gave great attention to it from first to last, and have drawn up a particular account of it. Those brave fellows have since served their country effectually at Jersey, and also in the East-Indies, to which, after being better informed, they voluntarily agreed to go. BOSWELL. The line which Boswell quotes is from _The Chevalier's Muster Roll_:--

'The laird of M'Intosh is coming,
M'Crabie & M'Donald's coming,
M'Kenzie & M'Pherson's coming,
And the wild M'Craw's coming.
Little wat ye wha's coming,
Donald Gun and a's coming.'
Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, i. 152.

Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 198) writing on May 9, 1779, tells how on May 1 'the French had attempted to land [on Jersey], but Lord Seaforth's new-raised regiment of 700 Highlanders, assisted by some militia and some artillery, made a brave stand and repelled the intruders.'

[442] 'One of the men advised her, with the cunning that clowns never can be without, to ask more; but she said that a shilling was enough. We gave her half a crown, and she offered part of it again.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 133.

[443] Of this part of the journey Johnson wrote:--'We had very little entertainment as we travelled either for the eye or ear. There are, I fancy, no singing birds in the Highlands.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 135. It is odd that he should have looked for singing birds on the first of September.

[444] Act iii. sc. 4.

[445] It is amusing to observe the different images which this being presented to Dr. Johnson and me. The Doctor, in his _Journey_, compares him to a Cyclops. BOSWELL. 'Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.' _Works_, ix. 44. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed where one of us was to lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be got'. _Piozzi Letters_, i, 136. Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 404) says: 'It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the _Journey to the Hebrides_ is the translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions.' Macaulay thereupon quotes these two passages. See _ante_, under Aug. 29, 1783.

[446] 'We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with my supper.'_Piozzi Letters_, i, 136. Goldsmith, who in his student days had been in Scotland, thus writes of a Scotch inn:--'Vile entertainment is served up, complained of, and sent down; up comes worse, and that also is changed, and every change makes our wretched cheer more unsavoury.' _Present State of Polite Learning_, ch. 12.

[447] General Wolfe, in his letter from Head-quarters on Sept. 2, 1759, eleven days before his death wrote:--'In this situation there is such a choice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss how to determine.' _Ann. Reg._ 1759, p. 246.

[448] See _ante_, p. 89.

[449] See _ante_, ii. 169, note 2.

[450] Boswell, in a note that he added to the second edition (see _post_, end of the _Journal_), says that he has omitted 'a few observations the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum,' In the first edition (p. 165) the next three paragraphs were as follows:--'Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, and a festive entertainment, we had a small company, and cannot boast of our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my Journal, but I shall not trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend Sir Thomas (Wentworth) Blacket, Lady Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon being asked by him if the punch-bowl then upon the table was not a very handsome one, replied, "Yes--if it were full." 'Sir Alexander Macdonald having been an Eton scholar, Dr. Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was much diminished when he beheld him in the isle of Sky, where we heard heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. Dr. Johnson said, "It grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear to such disadvantage. This gentleman has talents, nay some learning; but he is totally unfit for this situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen. A strong-minded man, like his brother Sir James, may be improved by an English education; but in general they will be tamed into insignificance." 'I meditated an escape from this house the very next day; but Dr. Johnson resolved that we should weather it out till Monday.' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast. A boat was procured, and we launched into one of the straits of the Atlantick Ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where ---- ---- resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified... Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 137. A little later he wrote:--'I have done thinking of ---- whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony, and given occasion to so many stories, that ---- has some thoughts of collecting them, and making a novel of his life.' _Ib_. p. 198. The last of Rowlandson's _Caricatures_ of Boswell's _Journal_ is entitled _Revising for the Second Edition_. Macdonald is represented as seizing Boswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to the _Journal_ that lies open at pages 168, 169. On the ground lie pages 165, 167, torn out. Boswell, in an agony of fear, is begging for mercy.

[451]

'Here, in Badenoch, here in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,
Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him.'

Clough's _Bothie_, p. 125

[452] See his Latin verses addressed to Dr. Johnson, in this APPENDIX. BOSWELL.

[453] See _ante_, ii. 157.

[454] See _ante_, i. 449.

[455] See _ante_, ii. 99.

[456] See _ante_, iii 198, note 1.

[457] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation, that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation knows less as he hears more.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 47. 'They are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false. Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the result of his investigations was, that the answer to the second question was commonly such as nullified the answer to the first.' _Ib._, p. 114.

[458] Mr. Carruthers, in his edition of Boswell's _Hebrides_, says (p. xiv):--'The new management and high rents took the tacksmen, or larger tenants, by surprise. They were indignant at the treatment they received, and selling off their stock they emigrated to America. In the twenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailed from the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containing about 6400 persons, who carried with them in specie at least £38,400. A desperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of Lord Macdonald. They bound themselves by a solemn oath not to offer for any farm that might become vacant. The combination failed of its object, but it appeared so formidable in the eyes of the "English-bred chieftain," that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwards returned.'

[459] Dr. Johnson seems to have forgotten that a Highlander going armed at this period incurred the penalty of serving as a common soldier for the first, and of transportation beyond sea for a second offence. And as for 'calling out his clan,' twelve Highlanders and a bagpipe made a rebellion. WALTER SCOTT.

[460] Mackintosh (_Life_ ii. 62) says that in Mme. du Deffand's _Correspondence_ there is 'an extraordinary confirmation of the talents and accomplishments of our Highland Phoenix, Sir James Macdonald. A Highland chieftain, admired by Voltaire, could have been no ordinary man.'

[461] This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute particulars concerning him must be interesting to many. I shall therefore insert his two last letters to his mother, Lady Margaret Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me. 'Rome, July 9th, 1766. 'My DEAR MOTHER, 'Yesterday's post brought me your answer to the first letter in which I acquainted you of my illness. Your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same I have always experienced, and to which I have often owed my life. Indeed it never was in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle. I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to give you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; but I must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak and miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician. My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomach will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time. So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed;--I only recover slower than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of it is a dose of physick, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I am not able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, and remain always 'Your most sincerely affectionate son, 'J. MACDONALD.' He grew gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as follows from Frescati:--'MY DEAR MOTHER, 'Though I did not mean to deceive you in my last letter from Rome, yet certainly you would have very little reason to conclude of the very great and constant danger I have gone through ever since that time. My life, which is still almost entirely desperate, did not at that time appear to me so, otherwise I should have represented, in its true colours, a fact which acquires very little horror by that means, and comes with redoubled force by deception. There is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I have not had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight; during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death, with as much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admit of. In case of the worst, the Abbé Grant will be my executor in this part of the world, and Mr. Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has been to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as possible.' BOSWELL. Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 291), in 1779, thus mentions this 'younger brother':--'Macdonald abused Lord North in very gross, yet too applicable, terms; and next day pleaded he had been drunk, recanted, and was all admiration and esteem for his Lordship's talents and virtues.'

[462] See _ante_, iii. 85, and _post_, Oct. 28.

[463] Cheyne's English Malady, ed. 1733, p. 229.

[464] 'Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2. See _ante_, iii. 350, where Boswell is reproached by Johnson with 'bringing in gabble,' when he makes this quotation.

[465] VARIOUS READINGS. Line 2. In the manuscript, Dr. Johnson, instead of _rupibus obsita_, had written _imbribus uvida_, and _uvida nubibus_, but struck them both out. Lines 15 and 16. Instead of these two lines, he had written, but afterwards struck out, the following:--

Parare posse, utcunque jactet
Grandiloquus nimis alta Zeno.

BOSWELL. In Johnson's _Works_, i. 167, these lines are given with some variations, which perhaps are in part due to Mr. Langton, who, we are told (_ante_, Dec. 1784), edited some, if not indeed all, of Johnson's Latin poems.

[466] Cowper wrote to S. Rose on May 20, 1789:--'Browne was an entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before; this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much.' Southey's _Cowper_, vi. 237. His _De Animi Immortalitate_ was published in 1754. He died in 1760, aged fifty-four. See _ante_, ii. 339.

[467] Boswell, in one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_ante_, iv. 179) says:--'I do fairly acknowledge that I love Drinking; that I have a constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and that if it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am afraid I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man.... Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. Were we so framed that it were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep ourselves for ever gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking would be the _summum bonum_, the chief good, to find out which philosophers have been so variously busied. But we know from humiliating experience that men cannot be kept long in a state of elevated drunkenness.'

[468] That my readers may have my narrative in the style of the country through which I am travelling, it is proper to inform them, that the chief of a clan is denominated by his _surname_ alone, as M'Leod, M'Kinnon, M'lntosh. To prefix _Mr._ to it would be a degradation from _the_ M'Leod, &c. My old friend, the Laird of M'Farlane, the great antiquary, took it highly amiss, when General Wade called him Mr. M'Farlane. Dr. Johnson said, he could not bring himself to use this mode of address; it seemed to him to be too familiar, as it is the way in which, in all other places, intimates or inferiors are addressed. When the chiefs have _titles_ they are denominated by them, as _Sir James Grant_, _Sir Allan M'Lean_. The other Highland gentlemen, of landed property, are denominated by their _estates_, as _Rasay_, _Boisdale_; and the wives of all of them have the title of _ladies_. The _tacksmen_, or principal tenants, are named by their farms, as _Kingsburgh_, _Corrichatachin_; and their wives are called the _mistress_ of Kingsburgh, the _mistress_ of Corrichatachin.--Having given this explanation, I am at liberty to use that mode of speech which generally prevails in the Highlands and the Hebrides. BOSWELL.

[469] See _ante_, iii. 275.

[470] Boswell implies that Sir A. Macdonald's table had not been furnished plentifully. Johnson wrote:--'At night we came to a tenant's house of the first rank of tenants, where we were entertained better than at the landlord's.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 141.

[471] 'Little did I once think,' he wrote to her the same day, 'of seeing this region of obscurity, and little did you once expect a salutation from this verge of European life. I have now the pleasure of going where nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 120. About fourteen years since, I landed in Sky, with a party of friends, and had the curiosity to ask what was the first idea on every one's mind at landing. All answered separately that it was this Ode. WALTER SCOTT.

[472] See Appendix B.

[473] 'I never was in any house of the islands, where I did not find books in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 50. He is speaking of 'the higher rank of the Hebridians,' for on p. 61 he says:--'The greater part of the islanders make no use of books.'

[474] There was a Mrs. Brooks, an actress, the daughter of a Scotchman named Watson, who had forfeited his property by 'going out in the '45.' But according to _The Thespian Dictionary_ her first appearance on the stage was in 1786.

[475] Boswell mentions, _post_, Oct. 5, 'the famous Captain of Clanranald, who fell at Sherrif-muir.'

[476] See _ante_, p. 95.

[477] By John Macpherson, D.D. See _post_, Sept. 13.

[478] Sir Walter Scott, when in Sky in 1814, wrote:--'We learn that most of the Highland superstitions, even that of the second sight, are still in force.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 305. See _.ante_, ii. 10, 318.

[479] Of him Johnson wrote:--'One of the ministers honestly told me that he came to Sky with a resolution not to believe it.' _Works_, ix. 106.

[480] 'By the term _second sight_ seems to be meant a mode of seeing superadded to that which nature generally bestows. In the Erse it is called _Taisch_; which signifies likewise a spectre or a vision.' _Johnson's Works_, ix. 105.

[481] Gray's _Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College_, 1. 44.

[482] A tonnage bounty of thirty shillings a ton was at this time given to the owners of busses or decked vessels for the encouragement of the white herring fishery. Adam Smith (_Wealth of Nations_, iv. 5) shews how mischievous was its effect.

[483] The Highland expression for Laird of Rasay. BOSWELL.

[484] 'In Sky I first observed the use of brogues, a kind of artless shoes, stitched with thongs so loosely, that, though they defend the foot from stones, they do not exclude water.' Johnson's _Works_, ix 46.

[485] To evade the law against the tartan dress, the Highlanders used to dye their variegated plaids and kilts into blue, green, or any single colour. WALTER SCOTT.

[486] See _post_, Oct. 5.

[487] The Highlanders were all well inclined to the episcopalian form, _proviso_ that the right _king_ was prayed for. I suppose Malcolm meant to say, 'I will come to your church because you are honest folk,' viz. _Jacobites_. WALTER SCOTT.

[488] See _ante_, i. 450, and ii. 291.

[489] Perhaps he was thinking of Johnson's letter of June 20, 1771 (_ante_, ii. 140), where he says:--'I hope the time will come when we may try our powers both with cliffs and water.'

[490] 'The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancing agitation.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142. 'The water was calm and the rowers were vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 54.

[491]

'Caught in the wild Aegean seas,
The sailor bends to heaven for ease.'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2, _Odes_, xvi. 1.

[492] See _ante_, iv. Dec. 9, 1784, note.

[493] Such spells are still believed in. A lady of property in Mull, a friend of mine, had a few years since much difficulty in rescuing from the superstitious fury of the people, an old woman, who used a _charm_ to injure her neighbour's cattle. It is now in my possession, and consists of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and such like trash, wrapt in a lump of clay. WALTER SCOTT.

[494] Sir Walter Scott, writing in Skye in 1814, says:--'Macleod and Mr. Suter have both heard a tacksman of Macleod's recite the celebrated Address to the Sun; and another person repeat the description of Cuchullin's car. But all agree as to the gross infidelity of Macpherson as a translator and editor.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 308.

[495] See _post_, Nov. 10.

[496] 'The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest-song, in which all their voices were united.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 58.

[497] 'The money which he raises annually by rent from all his dominions, which contain at least 50,000 acres, is not believed to exceed £250; but as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sells every year great numbers of cattle ... The wine circulates vigorously, and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always at hand.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142. 'Of wine and punch they are very liberal, for they get them cheap; but as there is no custom-house on the island, they can hardly be considered as smugglers.' _Ib_. p. 160. 'Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impost is obtained here at an easy rate.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 52.

[498] 'No man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they call a _skalk_.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. p. 51.

[499] Alexander Macleod, of Muiravenside, advocate, became extremely obnoxious to government by his zealous personal efforts to engage his chief Macleod, and Macdonald of Sky, in the Chevalier's attempts of 1745. Had he succeeded, it would have added one third at least to the Jacobite army. Boswell has oddly described _M'Cruslick_, the being whose name was conferred upon this gentleman, as something between Proteus and Don Quixote. It is the name of a species of satyr, or _esprit follet_, a sort of mountain Puck or hobgoblin, seen among the wilds and mountains, as the old Highlanders believed, sometimes mirthful, sometimes mischievous. Alexander Macleod's precarious mode of life and variable spirits occasioned the _soubriquet_. WALTER SCOTT.

[500] Johnson also complained of the cheese. 'In the islands they do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful odours with the fragrance of the tea.' _Works_, ix. 52.

[501] 'The estate has not, during four hundred years, gained or lost a single acre.' _Ib_. p. 55.

[502] Lord Stowell told me, that on the road from Newcastle to Berwick, Dr. Johnson and he passed a cottage, at the entrance of which were set up two of those great bones of the whale, which are not unfrequently seen in maritime districts. Johnson expressed great horror at the sight of these bones; and called the people, who could use such relics of mortality as an ornament, mere savages. CROKER.

[503] In like manner Boswell wrote:--'It is divinely cheering to me to think that there is a Cathedral so near Auchinleck [as Carlisle].' _Ante_, iii. 416.

[504] 'It is not only in Rasay that the chapel is unroofed and useless; through the few islands which we visited we neither saw nor heard of any house of prayer, except in Sky, that was not in ruins. The malignant influence of Calvinism has blasted ceremony and decency together... It has been for many years popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the Romish clergy; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches we may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid activity of those who suffer them to fall.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 61. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'By the active zeal of Protestant devotion almost all the chapels have sunk into ruin.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 152.

[505] 'Not many years ago,' writes Johnson, 'the late Laird led out one hundred men upon a military expedition.' _Works_, ix. 59. What the expedition was he is careful not to state.