Chapter XIX: Part 19

[506] 'I considered this rugged ascent as the consequence of a form of life inured to hardships, and therefore not studious of nice accommodations. But I know not whether for many ages it was not considered as a part of military policy to keep the country not easily accessible. The rocks are natural fortifications.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. p. 54.

[507] See _post_ Sept. 17.

[508] In Sky a price was set 'upon the heads of foxes, which, as the number was diminished, has been gradually raised from three shillings and sixpence to a guinea, a sum so great in this part of the world, that, in a short time, Sky may be as free from foxes as England from wolves. The fund for these rewards is a tax of sixpence in the pound, imposed by the farmers on themselves, and said to be paid with great willingness.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 57.

[509] Boswell means that the eastern coast of Sky is westward of Rasay. CROKER.

[510] 'The Prince was hidden in his distress two nights in Rasay, and the King's troops burnt the whole country, and killed some of the cattle. You may guess at the opinions that prevail in this country; they are, however, content with fighting for their King; they do not drink for him. We had no foolish healths', _Piozzi Letters_, i. 145.

[511] See _ante_, iv. 217, where he said:--'You have, perhaps, no man who knows as much Greek and Latin as Bentley.'

[512] See _ante_, ii. 61, and _post_, Oct. 1.

[513] See _ante_, i. 268, note 1.

[514] Steele had had the Duke of Marlborough's papers, and 'in some of his exigencies put them in pawn. They then remained with the old Duchess, who, in her will, assigned the task to Glover [the author of _Leonidas_] and Mallet, with a reward of a thousand pounds, and a prohibition to insert any verses. Glover rejected, I suppose with disdain, the legacy, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet; who had from the late Duke of Marlborough a pension to promote his industry, and who talked of the discoveries which he had made; but left not, when he died, any historical labours behind him.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 466. The Duchess died in 1744 and Mallet in 1765. For more than twenty years he thus imposed more or less successfully on the world. About the year 1751 he played on Garrick's vanity. 'Mallet, in a familiar conversation with Garrick, discoursing of the diligence which he was then exerting upon the _Life of Marlborough_, let him know, that in the series of great men quickly to be exhibited, he should _find a niche_ for the hero of the theatre. Garrick professed to wonder by what artifice he could be introduced; but Mallet let him know, that by a dexterous anticipation he should fix him in a conspicuous place. "Mr. Mallet," says Garrick in his gratitude of exultation, "have you left off to write for the stage?" Mallet then confessed that he had a drama in his hands. Garrick promised to act it; and _Alfred_ was produced.' _Ib_. p. 465. See _ante_, iii. 386.

[515] According to Dr. Warton (_Essay on Pope_, ii. 140) he received £5000. 'Old Marlborough,' wrote Horace Walpole in March, 1742 (Letters, i. 139), 'has at last published her _Memoirs_; they are digested by one Hooke, who wrote a Roman history; but from her materials, which are so womanish that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and petticoat with them.'

[516] See _ante_, i. 153

[517] 'Hooke,' says Dr. Warton (_Essay on Pope_, ii. 141), 'was a Mystic and a Quietist, and a warm disciple of Fénelon. It was he who brought a Catholic priest to take Pope's confession on his death-bed.'

[518] See Cumberland's _Memoirs_, i. 344.

[519] Mr. Croker says that 'though he sold a great tract of land in Harris, he left at his death in 1801 the original debt of £50,000 [Boswell says £40,000] increased to £70,000.' When Johnson visited Macleod at Dunvegan, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Here, though poor Macleod had been left by his grandfather overwhelmed with debts, we had another exhibition of feudal hospitality. There were two stags in the house, and venison came to the table every day in its various forms. Macleod, besides his estate in Sky, larger I suppose than some English counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and of his isles uninhabited I doubt if he very exactly knows the number, I told him that he was a mighty monarch. Such dominions fill an Englishman with envious wonder; but when he surveys the naked mountain, and treads the quaking moor; and wanders over the wild regions of gloomy barrenness, his wonder may continue, but his envy ceases. The unprofitableness of these vast domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances. The heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me how wealthy he should be if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate which the surveyor reports to contain 80,000 acres, rented at £600 a year.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 154.

[520] They were abolished by an act passed in 1747, being 'reckoned among the principal sources of the rebellions. They certainly kept the common people in subjection to their chiefs. By this act they were legally emancipated from slavery; but as the tenants enjoyed no leases, and were at all times liable to be ejected from their farms, they still depended on the pleasure of their lords, notwithstanding this interposition of the legislature, which granted a valuable consideration in money to every nobleman and petty baron, who was thus deprived of one part of his inheritance.' Smollett's _England_, iii. 206. See _ante_, p. 46, note 1, and _post_, Oct. 22.

[521] 'I doubt not but that since the regular judges have made their circuits through the whole country, right has been everywhere more wisely and more equally distributed; the complaint is, that litigation is grown troublesome, and that the magistrates are too few and therefore often too remote for general convenience... In all greater questions there is now happily an end to all fear or hope from malice or from favour. The roads are secure in those places through which forty years ago no traveller could pass without a convoy...No scheme of policy has in any country yet brought the rich and poor on equal terms to courts of judicature. Perhaps experience improving on experience may in time effect it.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 90.

[522] He described Rasay as 'the seat of plenty, civility, and cheerfulness.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 152.

[523] 'We heard the women singing as they _waulked_ the cloth, by rubbing it with their hands and feet, and screaming all the while in a sort of chorus. At a distance the sound was wild and sweet enough, but rather discordant when you approached too near the performers.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 307.

[524] She had been some time at Edinburgh, to which she again went, and was married to my worthy neighbour, Colonel Mure Campbell, now Earl of Loudoun, but she died soon afterwards, leaving one daughter. BOSWELL. 'She is a celebrated beauty; has been admired at Edinburgh; dresses her head very high; and has manners so lady-like that I wish her head-dress was lower.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 144. See _ante_, iii. 118.

[525]

'Yet hope not life from _grief_ or danger free,
_Nor_ think the doom of man reversed for thee.'

_The Vanity of Human Wishes_.

[526] 'Rasay accompanied us in his six-oared boat, which he said was his coach and six. It is indeed the vehicle in which the ladies take the air and pay their visits, but they have taken very little care for accommodations. There is no way in or out of the boat for a woman but by being carried; and in the boat thus dignified with a pompous name there is no seat but an occasional bundle of straw.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 152. In describing the distance of one family from another, Johnson writes:--'Visits last several days, and are commonly paid by water; yet I never saw a boat furnished with benches.' _Works_, ix. 100.

[527] See _ante_, ii. 106, and iii. 154.

[528] 'They which forewent us did leave a Roome for us, and should wee grieve to doe the same to these which should come after us? Who beeing admitted to see the exquisite rarities of some antiquaries cabinet is grieved, all viewed, to have the courtaine drawen, and give place to new pilgrimes?' _A Cypresse Grove_, by William Drummond of Hawthorne-denne, ed. 1630, p. 68.

[529] See _ante_, iii. 153, 295.

[530]

'While hoary Nestor, by experience wise,
To reconcile the angry monarch tries.'

FRANCIS. Horace, i _Epis_. ii. II.

[531] _See ante_, p. 16.

[532] Lord Elibank died Aug. 3, 1778, aged 75. _Gent. Mag._ 1778, p. 391.

[533] A term in Scotland for a special messenger, such as was formerly sent with dispatches by the lords of the council.

[534] Yet he said of him:--'There is nothing _conclusive_ in his talk.' _Ante_ iii. 57.

[535] 'I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 402. See _ante_, iv. 263.

[536] Johnson says (_ib_. ix. 156) that when the military road was made through Glencroe, 'stones were placed to mark the distances, which the inhabitants have taken away, resolved, they said, "to have no new miles."'

[537]

'The lawland lads think they are fine,
But O they're vain and idly gawdy;
How much unlike that graceful mien
And manly look of my highland laddie.'

From '_The Highland Laddie_, written long since by Allan Ramsay, and now sung at Ranelagh and all the other gardens; often fondly encored, and sometimes ridiculously hissed.' _Gent. Mag_. 1750, p. 325.

[538] 'She is of a pleasing person and elegant behaviour. She told me that she thought herself honoured by my visit; and I am sure that whatever regard she bestowed on me was liberally repaid.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 153. In his _Journey_ (_Works_, ix. 63) Johnson speaks of Flora Macdonald, as 'a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.'

[539] This word, which meant much the same as, _fop_ or _dandy_, is found in Bk. x. ch. 2 of Fielding's _Amelia_ (published in 1751):--'A large assembly of young fellows, whom they call bucks.' Less than forty years ago, in the neighbourhood of London, it was, I remember, still commonly applied by the village lads to the boys of a boarding-school.

[540] This word was at this time often used in a loose sense, though Johnson could not have so used it. Thus Horace Walpole, writing on May 16, 1759 (_Letters_, iii. 227), tells a story of the little Prince Frederick. 'T'other day as he was with the Prince of Wales, Kitty Fisher passed by, and the child named her; the Prince, to try him, asked who that was? "Why, a Miss." "A Miss," said the Prince of Wales, "why are not all girls Misses?" "Oh! but a particular sort of Miss--a Miss that sells oranges."' Mr. Cunningham in a note on this says:--'Orange-girls at theatres were invariably courtesans.'

[541] _Governor_ was the term commonly given to a tutor, especially a travelling tutor. Thus Peregrine Pickle was sent first to Winchester and afterwards abroad 'under the immediate care and inspection of a governor.' _Peregrine Pickle_, ch. xv.

[542] He and his wife returned before the end of the War of Independence. On the way back she showed great spirit when their ship was attacked by a French man of war. Chambers's _Rebellion in Scotland_, ii. 329.

[543] I do not call him _the Prince of Wales_, or _the Prince_, because I am quite satisfied that the right which the _House of Stuart_ had to the throne is extinguished. I do not call him, the _Pretender_, because it appears to me as an insult to one who is still alive, and, I suppose, thinks very differently. It may be a parliamentary expression; but it is not a gentlemanly expression. I _know_, and I exult in having it in my power to tell, that THE ONLY PERSON in the world who is intitled to be offended at this delicacy, thinks and feels as I do; and has liberality of mind and generosity of sentiment enough to approve of my tenderness for what even _has been_ Blood Royal. That he is a _prince_ by _courtesy_, cannot be denied; because his mother was the daughter of Sobiesky, king of Poland. I shall, therefore, _on that account alone_, distinguish him by the name of _Prince Charles Edward_. BOSWELL. To have called him the _Pretender_ in the presence of Flora Macdonald would have been hazardous. In her old age, 'such is said to have been the virulence of the Jacobite spirit in her composition, that she would have struck any one with her fist who presumed, in her hearing, to call Charles _the Pretender_.' Chambers's _Rebellion in Scotland_, ii. 330.

[544] This, perhaps, was said in allusion to some lines ascribed to _Pope_, on his lying, at John Duke of Argyle's, at Adderbury, in the same bed in which Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, had slept:

'With no poetick ardour fir'd,
I press [press'd] the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he liv'd [lov'd], or here expir'd,
Begets no numbers, grave or gay.'

BOSWELL.

[545] See _ante_, iv. 60, 187.

[546] See _ante_, iv. 113 and 315.

[547] 'This was written while Mr. Wilkes was Sheriff of London, and when it was to be feared he would rattle his chain a year longer as Lord Mayor.' Note to Campbell's _British Poets_, p. 662. By 'here' the poet means at _Tyburn_.

[548] With virtue weigh'd, what worthless trash is gold! BOSWELL.

[549] Since the first edition of this book, an ingenious friend has observed to me, that Dr. Johnson had probably been thinking on the reward which was offered by government for the apprehension of the grandson of King James II, and that he meant by these words to express his admiration of the Highlanders, whose fidelity and attachment had resisted the golden temptation that had been held out to them. BOSWELL.

[550] On the subject of Lady Margaret Macdonald, it is impossible to omit an anecdote which does much honour to Frederick, Prince of Wales. By some chance Lady Margaret had been presented to the princess, who, when she learnt what share she had taken in the Chevalier's escape, hastened to excuse herself to the prince, and exlain to him that she was not aware that Lady Margaret was the person who had harboured the fugitive. The prince's answer was noble: 'And would _you_ not have done the same, madam, had he come to you, as to her, in distress and danger? I hope--I am sure you would!' WALTER SCOTT.

[551] This old Scottish _member of parliament_, I am informed, is still living (1785). BOSWELL.

[552] I cannot find that this account was ever published. Mr. Lumisden is mentioned _ante_, ii. 401, note 2.

[553] This word is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[554] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 153) describes him in 1745 as 'a good-looking man of about five feet ten inches; his hair was dark red, and his eyes black. His features were regular, his visage long, much sunburnt and freckled, and his countenance thoughtful and melancholy.' When the Pretender was in London in 1750, 'he came one evening,' writes Dr. W. King (_Anec_. p. 199) 'to my lodgings, and drank tea with me; my servant, after he was gone, said to me, that he thought my new visitor very like Prince Charles. "Why," said I, "have you ever seen Prince Charles?" "No, Sir," said the fellow, "but this gentleman, whoever he may be, exactly resembles the busts which are sold in Red Lionstreet, and are said to be the busts of Prince Charles." The truth is, these busts were taken in plaster of Paris from his face. He has an handsome face and good eyes.'

[555] Sir Walter Scott, writing of his childhood, mentions 'the stories told in my hearing of the cruelties after the battle of Culloden. One or two of our own distant relations had fallen, and I remember of (sic) detesting the name of Cumberland with more than infant hatred.' Lockhart's _Scott_, i. 24. 'I was,' writes Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_, p. 190), 'in the coffee-house with Smollett when the news of the battle of Culloden arrived, and when London all over was in a perfect uproar of joy.' On coming out into the street, 'Smollett,' he continues, 'cautioned me against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover my country, and become insolent, "for John Bull," says he; "is as haughty and valiant to-night as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when the Highlanders were at Derby." I saw not Smollett again for some time after, when he shewed me his manuscript of his _Tears of Scotland_. Smollett, though a Tory, was not a Jacobite, but he had the feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that were said to be exercised after the battle of Culloden.' See _ante_, ii. 374, for the madman 'beating his straw, supposing it was the Duke of Cumberland, whom he was punishing for his cruelties in Scotland in 1746.'

[556] 'He was obliged to trust his life to the fidelity of above fifty individuals, and many of these were in the lowest paths of fortune. They knew that a price of £30,000 was set upon his head, and that by betraying him they should enjoy wealth and affluence.' Smollett's _Hist. of England_, iii. 184.

[557] 'Que les hommes privés, qui se plaignent de leurs petites infortunes, jettent les yeux sur ce prince et sur ses ancêtres.' _Siècle de Louis XV_, ch. 25.

[558] 'I never heard him express any noble or benevolent sentiments, or discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortunes of so many worthy men who had suffered in his cause. But the most odious part of his character is his love of money, a vice which I do not remember to have been imputed by our historians to any of his ancestors, and is the certain index of a base and little mind. I have known this gentleman, with 2000 Louis d'ors in his strong box, pretend he was in great distress, and borrow money from a lady in Paris, who was not in affluent circumstances.' Dr. W. King's _Anec._ p. 201. 'Lord Marischal,' writes Hume, 'had a very bad opinion of this unfortunate prince; and thought there was no vice so mean or atrocious of which he was not capable; of which he gave me several instances.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 464.

[559] _Siècle de Louis XIV_, ch. 15. The accentuation of this passage, which was very incorrect as quoted by Boswell, I have corrected.

[560] By banishment he meant, I conjecture, transportation as a convict-slave to the American plantations.

[561] Wesley in his _Journal_--the reference I have mislaid--seemed from this consideration almost to regret a reprieve that came to a penitent convict.

[562] Hume describes how in 1753 (? 1750) the Pretender, on his secret visit to London, 'came to the house of a lady (who I imagined to be Lady Primrose) without giving her any preparatory information; and entered the room where she had a pretty large company with her, and was herself playing at cards. He was announced by the servant under another name. She thought the cards would have dropped from her hands on seeing him. But she had presence enough of mind to call him by the name he assumed.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 462. Mr. Croker (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 331) prints an autograph letter from Flora Macdonald which shows that Lady Primrose in 1751 had lodged £627 in a friend's hands for her behoof, and that she had in view to add more.

[563] It seems that the Pretender was only once in London, and that it was in 1750. _Ante_, i. 279, note 5. I suspect that 1759 is Boswell's mistake or his printer's. From what Johnson goes on to say it is clear that George II. was in Germany at the time of the Prince's secret visit. He was there the greater part of 1750, but not in 1753 or 1759. In 1750, moreover, 'the great army of the King of Prussia overawed Hanover.' Smollett's _England_, iii. 297. This explains what Johnson says about the King of Prussia stopping the army in Germany.

[564] See _ante_, iv. 165, 170.

[565] COMMENTARIES on the laws of England, book 1. chap. 3. BOSWELL.

[566] B. VI. chap. 3. Since I have quoted Mr. Archdeacon Paley upon one subject, I cannot but transcribe, from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation.--After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the _indirect_ attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian,' the archdeacon thus expresses himself:--

'Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. Every mind which wishes the advancement of truth and knowledge, in the most important of all human researches, must abhor this licentiousness, as violating no less the laws of reasoning than the rights of decency. There is but one description of men to whose principles it ought to be tolerable. I mean that class of reasoners who can see _little_ in christianity even supposing it to be true. To such adversaries we address this reflection.--Had _Jesus Christ_ delivered no other declaration than the following, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth,--they that have done well [good] unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation," [_St. John_ v. 25] he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and attested:--a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say that a future state had been discovered already.--It had been discovered as the Copernican System was;--it was one guess amongst many. He alone discovers who _proves_, and no man can prove this point but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from GOD.'--Book V. chap. 9.

If infidelity be disingenuously dispersed in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination,--in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem,--in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history,--as Mr. Paley has well observed,--I hope it is fair in me thus to meet such poison with an unexpected antidote, which I cannot doubt will be found powerful. BOSWELL. The 'eloquent historian' was Gibbon. See Paley's _Principles_, ed. 1786, p. 395.

[567] In _The Life of Johnson (ante_, iii. 113), Boswell quotes these words, without shewing that they are his own; but italicises not fervour, but loyalty.

[568] 'Whose service is perfect freedom.' _Book of Common Prayer._

[569] See _ante_, i. 353, note 1.

[570] Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_, iii. 121.

[571]

'This facile temper of the beauteous sex
Great Agamemnon, brave Pelides proved.'

These two lines follow the four which Boswell quotes. _Agis_, act iv.

[572] _Agis_, a tragedy, by John Home. BOSWELL.

[573] See _ante_, p. 27.

[574] A misprint, I suppose, for _designing_.

[575] 'Next in dignity to the laird is the tacksman; a large taker or leaseholder of land, of which he keeps part as a domain in his own hand, and lets part to under-tenants. The tacksman is necessarily a man capable of securing to the laird the whole rent, and is commonly a collateral relation.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 82.

[576] A _lettre de cachet_.

[577] _Ante_, p. 159.

[578] 'It is related that at Dunvegan Lady Macleod, having poured out for Dr. Johnson sixteen cups of tea, asked him if a small basin would not save him trouble, and be more agreeable. "I wonder, Madam," answered he roughly, "why all the ladies ask me such questions. It is to save yourselves trouble, Madam, and not me." The lady was silent and resumed her task.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 81.

[579] 'In the garden-or rather the orchard which was formerly the garden-is a pretty cascade, divided into two branches, and called Rorie More's Nurse, because he loved to be lulled to sleep by the sound of it.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 304.

[580] It has been said that she expressed considerable dissatisfaction at Dr. Johnson's rude behaviour at Dunvegan. Her grandson, the present Macleod, assures me that it was not so: 'they were all,' he says emphatically, '_delighted_ with him.' CROKER. Mr. Croker refers, I think, to a communication from Sir Walter Scott, published in the _Croker Corres_. ii. 33. Scott writes:--'When wind-bound at Dunvegan, Johnson's temper became most execrable, and beyond all endurance, save that of his guide. The Highlanders, who are very courteous in their way, held him in great contempt for his want of breeding, but had an idea at the same time there was something respectable about him, they could not tell what, and long spoke of him as the Sassenach _mohr_, or large Saxon.'

[581] 'I long to be again in civilized life.' _Ante_, p. 183.

[582] See _ante_, iii. 406.

[583] Johnson refers, I think, to a passage in _L'Esprit des Lois_, Book xvi. chap. 4, where Montesquieu says:--'J'avoue que si ce que les relations nous disent était vrai, qu'à Bantam il y a dix femmes pour un homme, ce serait un cas bien particulier de la polygamie. Dans tout ceci je ne justifie pas les usages, mais j'en rends les raisons.'

[584] What my friend treated as so wild a supposition, has actually happened in the Western islands of Scotland, if we may believe Martin, who tells it of the islands of Col and Tyr-yi, and says that it is proved by the parish registers. BOSWELL. 'The Isle of Coll produces more boys than girls, and the Isle of Tire-iy more girls than boys; as if nature intended both these isles for mutual alliances, without being at the trouble of going to the adjacent isles or continent to be matched. The parish-book in which the number of the baptised is to be seen, confirms this observation.' Martin's _Western Islands,_ p. 271.

[585] _A Dissertation on the Gout_, by W. Cadogan, M.D., 1771. It went through nine editions in its first year.

[586] This was a general reflection against Dr. Cadogan, when his very popular book was first published. It was said, that whatever precepts he might give to others, he himself indulged freely in the bottle. But I have since had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him, and, if his own testimony may be believed, (and I have never heard it impeached,) his course of life has been conformable to his doctrine. BOSWELL.

[587] 'April 7, 1765. I purpose to rise at eight, because, though I shall not yet rise early, it will be much earlier than I now rise, for I often lie till two.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 62. 'Sept. 18, 1771. My nocturnal complaints grow less troublesome towards morning; and I am tempted to repair the deficiencies of the night. I think, however, to try to rise every day by eight, and to combat indolence as I shall obtain strength.' _Ib._ p. 105. 'April 14, 1775. As my life has from my earliest years been wasted in a morning bed, my purpose is from Easter day to rise early, not later than eight.' _Ib._ p. 139.

[588] See _post_, Oct. 25.

[589] See _ante_, iv. under Dec. 2, 1784.

[590] Miss Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) wrote in 1753:--'I had the assurance to dispute with Mr. Johnson on the subject of human malignity, and wondered to hear a man, who by his actions shews so much benevolence, maintain that the human heart is naturally malevolent, and that all the benevolence we see in the few who are good is acquired by reason and religion.' _ Life of Mrs. Chapone_, p.73. See _post_, p. 214.

[591] This act was passed in 1746.

[592] _Isaiah_, ii. 4.

[593] Sir Walter Scott, after mentioning Lord Orford's (Horace Walpole) _History of His Own Time_, continues:--'The Memoirs of our Scots Sir George Mackenzie are of the same class--both immersed in little political detail, and the struggling skirmish of party, seem to have lost sight of the great progressive movements of human affairs.' Lockhart's _Scott_ vii. 12.

[594] 'Illum jura potius ponere quam de jure respondere dixisses; eique appropinquabant clientes tanquam judici potius quam advocato.' Mackenzie's _Works_, ed. 1716, vol. i. part 2, p. 7.

[595] 'Opposuit ei providentia Nisbetum: qui summâ doctrinâ consummatâque eloquentiâ causas agebat, ut justitiae scalae in aequilibrio essent; nimiâ tamen arte semper utens artem suam suspectam reddebat. Quoties ergo conflixerunt, penes Gilmorum gloria, penes Nisbetum palma fuit; quoniam in hoc plus artis et cultus, in illo naturae et virium.' _Ib._

[596] He often indulged himself in every species of pleasantry and wit. BOSWELL.

[597] But like the hawk, having soared with a lofty flight to a height which the eye could not reach, he was wont to swoop upon his quarry with wonderful rapidity. BOSWELL. These two quotations are part of the same paragraph, and are not even separated by a word. _Ib._ p. 6.

[598] See _ante_, i. 453; iii. 323; iv. 276; and v. 32.

[599] Some years later he said that 'when Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.' _Ante_, iv. 276.

[600] Cicero and Demosthenes, no doubt, were brought in by the passage about Nicholson. Mackenzie continues:--'Hic primus nos a Syllogismorum servitute manumisit et Aristotelem Demostheni potius quam Ciceroni forum concedere coegit.' P. 6.

[601] See _ante_ ii. 435 and iv. 149, note 3.

[602] See _ante_, i. 103.

[603] See _ante_ ii 436

[604] See _ante_, i. 65.

[605] On Sept. 13, 1777, Johnson wrote:--'Boswell shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power.' _Ante_, iii. 134, note 1.

[606] See _ante_, ii. 59, note 1.

[607] See _ante_, iii. 368.

[608] 'Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning ... nor is caution ever so necessary as with associates or opponents of feeble minds.' _The Idler_, No. 92. In a letter to Dr. Taylor Johnson says:--'To help the ignorant commonly requires much patience, for the ignorant are always trying to be cunning.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 462. Churchill, in _The Journey_ (_Poems_, ed. 1766, ii. 327), says:--

''Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule,
Wits are safe things, there's danger in a fool.'

[609] See _ante_, p. 173.

[610]

'For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read;
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it.'

_The Dunciad_, iv. 249.

[611] Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; and the art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is not always best. I should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.' _The Idler_, No. 45. 'Southey wrote thirty years later:--'I find daily more and more reason to wonder at the miserable ignorance of English historians, and to grieve with a sort of despondency at seeing how much that has been laid up among the stores of knowledge has been neglected and utterly forgotten.' Southey's _Life_, ii. 264. On another occasion he said of Robertson:--'To write his introduction to _Charles V_, without reading these _Laws_ [the _Laws_ of Alonso the Wise], is one of the thousand and one omissions for which he ought to be called rogue, as long as his volumes last. _Ib_. p. 318

[612]

'That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die,
Espy'd a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.'
_Epistle to a Lady._

Anderson's _Poets_, v. 480.

[613] See _ante_, iii. 271.

[614] 'In England there may be reason for raising the rents (in a certain degree) where the value of lands is increased by accession of commerce, ...but here (contrary to all policy) the great men begin at the wrong end, with squeezing the bag, before they have helped the poor tenant to fill it; by the introduction of manufactures.' Pennant's _Scotland_, ed. 1772, p. 191.

[615] Boswell refers, not to a passage in _Pennant_, but to Johnson's admission that in his dispute with Monboddo, 'he might have taken the side of the savage, had anybody else taken the side of the shopkeeper.' _Ante_, p. 83.

[616] 'Boswell, with some of his troublesome kindness, has informed this family and reminded me that the 18th of September is my birthday. The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 134. See _ante_, iii. 157.

[617] 'At Dunvegan I had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart, till Mr. Boswell sagely reproached me with my sluggishness and softness.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 67.

[618] Johnson wrote of the ministers:--'I saw not one in the islands whom I had reason to think either deficient in learning, or irregular in life; but found several with whom I could not converse without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been Presbyterians.' _Ib_. p. 102.

[619] See _ante_, p. 142.

[620] See _ante_, ii. 28.

[621]

'So horses they affirm to be
Mere engines made by geometry,
And were invented first from engines,
As Indian Britons were from penguins.'

_Hudibras_, part i. canto 2, line 57. Z. Gray, in a note on these lines, quotes Selden's note on Drayton's _Polyolbion_:--'About the year 1570, Madoc, brother to David Ap Owen, Prince of Wales, made a sea-voyage to Florida; and by probability those names of Capo de Breton in Norimberg, and Penguin in part of the Northern America, for a white rock and a white-headed bird, according to the British, were relicts of this discovery.'

[622] Published in Edinburgh in 1763.

[623] See ante, ii. 76. 'Johnson used to say that in all family disputes the odds were in favour of the husband from his superior knowledge of life and manners.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 210.

[624] He wrote to Dr. Taylor:--' Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 342.

[625] As I have faithfully recorded so many minute particulars, I hope I shall be pardoned for inserting so flattering an encomium on what is now offered to the publick. BOSWELL.

[626] See _ante_, iv. 109, note 1.

[627] 'The islanders of all degrees, whether of rank or understanding, universally admit it, except the ministers, who universally deny it, and are suspected to deny it in consequence of a system, against conviction.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 106.

[628] The true story of this lady, which happened in this century, is as frightfully romantick as if it had been the fiction of a gloomy fancy. She was the wife of one of the Lords of Session in Scotland, a man of the very first blood of his country. For some mysterious reasons, which have never been discovered, she was seized and carried off in the dark, she knew not by whom, and by nightly journeys was conveyed to the Highland shores, from whence she was transported by sea to the remote rock of St. Kilda, where she remained, amongst its few wild inhabitants, a forlorn prisoner, but had a constant supply of provisions, and a woman to wait on her. No inquiry was made after her, till she at last found means to convey a letter to a confidential friend, by the daughter of a Catechist, who concealed it in a clue of yarn. Information being thus obtained at Edinburgh, a ship was sent to bring her off; but intelligence of this being received, she was conveyed to M'Leod's island of Herries, where she died.

In CARSTARE'S STATE PAPERS we find an authentick narrative of Connor [Conn], a catholick priest, who turned protestant, being seized by some of Lord Seaforth's people, and detained prisoner in the island of Herries several years; he was fed with bread and water, and lodged in a house where he was exposed to the rains and cold. Sir James Ogilvy writes (June 18, 1667 [1697]), that the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Advocate, and himself, were to meet next day, to take effectual methods to have this redressed. Connor was then still detained; p. 310.--This shews what private oppression might in the last century be practised in the Hebrides.

In the same collection [in a letter dated Sept. 15, 1700], the Earl of Argyle gives a picturesque account of an embassy from the _great_ M'Neil _of Barra_, as that insular Chief used to be denominated:--'I received a letter yesterday from M'Neil of Barra, who lives very far off, sent by a gentleman in all formality, offering his service, which had made you laugh to see his entry. His style of his letter runs as if he were of another kingdom.'--Page 643 [648]. BOSWELL.

Sir Walter Scott says:--'I have seen Lady Grange's Journal. She had become privy to some of the Jacobite intrigues, in which her husband, Lord Grange (an Erskine, brother of the Earl of Mar, and a Lord of Session), and his family were engaged. Being on indifferent terms with her husband, she is said to have thrown out hints that she knew as much as would cost him his life. The judge probably thought with Mrs. Peachum, that it is rather an awkward state of domestic affairs, when the wife has it in her power to hang the husband. Lady Grange was the more to be dreaded, as she came of a vindictive race, being the grandchild [according to Mr. Chambers, the child] of that Chiesley of Dalry, who assassinated Sir George Lockhart, the Lord President. Many persons of importance in the Highlands were concerned in removing her testimony. The notorious Lovat, with a party of his men, were the direct agents in carrying her off; and St. Kilda, belonging then to Macleod, was selected as the place of confinement. The name by which she was spoken or written of was _Corpach_, an ominous distinction, corresponding to what is called _subject_ in the lecture-room of an anatomist, or _shot_ in the slang of the Westport murderers' [Burke and Hare]. Sir Walter adds that 'it was said of M'Neil of Barra, that when he dined, his bagpipes blew a particular strain, intimating that all the world might go to dinner.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 341.

[629] I doubt the justice of my fellow-traveller's remark concerning the French literati, many of whom, I am told, have considerable merit in conversation, as well as in their writings. That of Monsieur de Buffon, in particular, I am well assured, is highly instructive and entertaining. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 253.

[630] Horace Walpole, writing of 1758, says:--'Prize-fighting, in which we had horribly resembled the most barbarous and most polite nations, was suppressed by the legislature.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, iii. 99. According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 5), Johnson said that his 'father's brother, Andrew, kept the ring in Smithfield (where they wrestled and boxed) for a whole year, and never was thrown or conquered. Mr. Johnson was,' she continues, 'very conversant in the art of boxing.' She had heard him descant upon it 'much to the admiration of those who had no expectation of his skill in such matters.'

[631] See _ante_, ii. 179, 226, and iv. 211.

[632] See _ante_, p. 98.

[633] See _ante_, i, 110.

[634] See _ante_, i. 398, and ii. 15, 35, 441.

[635] Gibbon, thirteen years later, writing to Lord Sheffield about the commercial treaty with France, said (_Misc. Works_, ii. 399):--'I hope both nations are gainers; since otherwise it cannot be lasting; and such double mutual gain is surely possible in fair trade, though it could not easily happen in the mischievous amusements of war and gaming.'

[636] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 139), writing of gratitude and resentment, says:--'Though there are few who will practise a laborious virtue, there will never be wanting multitudes that will indulge an easy vice.'

[637] _Aul. Gellius_, lib. v. c. xiv. BOSWELL.

[638] 'The difficulties in princes' business are many and great; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes, saith Tacitus, to will contradictories. _Sunt plerumque regum voluntates vehementes, et inter se contrariae_. For it is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean.' Bacon's _Essays_, No. xix.

[639] Yet Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 30:--'I am now no longer pleased with the delay; you can hear from me but seldom, and I cannot at all hear from you. It comes into my mind that some evil may happen.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 148. On Oct. 15 he wrote to Mr. Thrale:--'Having for many weeks had no letter, my longings are very great to be informed how all things are at home, as you and mistress allow me to call it.... I beg to have my thoughts set at rest by a letter from you or my mistress.' _Ib_. p. 166. See _ante_, iii. 4.

[640] Sir Walter Scott thus describes Dunvegan in 1814:--'The whole castle occupies a precipitous mass of rock overhanging the lake, divided by two or three islands in that place, which form a snug little harbour under the walls. There is a court-yard looking out upon the sea, protected by a battery, at least a succession of embrasures, for only two guns are pointed, and these unfit for service. The ancient entrance rose up a flight of steps cut in the rock, and passed into this court-yard through a portal, but this is now demolished. You land under the castle, and walking round find yourself in front of it. This was originally inaccessible, for a brook coming down on the one side, a chasm of the rocks on the other, and a ditch in front, made it impervious. But the late Macleod built a bridge over the stream, and the present laird is executing an entrance suitable to the character of this remarkable fortalice, by making a portal between two advanced towers, and an outer court, from which he proposes to throw a draw-bridge over to the high rock in front of the castle.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 303.

[641]

'Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;
Quae dat Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.'

[642] Johnson says of this castle:--'It is so nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long outlive the reparation. The grandfather of the present laird, in defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time, and applied his money to worse uses.' _Works_, ix. 64.

[643] Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 365) ends a lively piece of criticism on Mr. Croker by saying:--'It requires no Bentley or Casaubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe.'

[644] See _ante_, i. 180.

[645] Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:--'The monument is now nearly ruinous, and the inscription has fallen down.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 308.

[646] 'Wheel carriages they have none, but make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse, with the two points behind pressing on the ground. On this they sometimes drag home their sheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open pannier, or frame of sticks, upon the horse's back.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 76. 'The young Laird of Col has attempted what no islander perhaps ever thought on. He has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage. He has carried it about a mile.' _Ib_. p. 128.

[647] Captain Phipps had sailed in May of this year, and in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen had reached the latitude of more than 80°. He returned to England in the end of September. _Gent. Mag_. 1774, p. 420.

[648] _Aeneid_, vi. II.

[649] 'In the afternoon, an interval of calm sunshine courted us out to see a cave on the shore, famous for its echo. When we went into the boat, one of our companions was asked in Erse by the boatmen, who they were that came with him. He gave us characters, I suppose to our advantage, and was asked, in the spirit of the Highlands, whether I could recite a long series of ancestors. The boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an English ghost. This, Boswell says, disturbed him.... There was no echo; such is the fidelity of report.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 156.

[650] '_Law_ or _low_ signifies a hill: _ex. gr._ Wardlaw, guard hill, Houndslow, the dog's hill.' Blackie's _Etymological Geography_, p. 103.

[651] Pepys often mentions them. At first he praises them highly, but of one of the later ones--_Tryphon_--he writes:--'The play, though admirable, yet no pleasure almost in it, because just the very same design, and words, and sense, and plot, as every one of his plays have, any one of which would be held admirable, whereas so many of the same design and fancy do but dull one another.' Pepys's _Diary_, ed. 1851, v. 63.

[652] The second and third earls are passed over by Johnson. It was the fourth earl who, as Charles Boyle, had been Bentley's antagonist. Of this controversy a full account is given in Lord Macaulay's _Life of Atterbury_.

[653] The fifth earl, John. See _ante_, i. 185, and iii. 249.

[654] See _ante_, i. 9, and iii. 154.

[655] See _ante_, ii. 129, and iii. 183.

[656] The young lord was married on the 8th of May, 1728, and the father's will is dated the 6th of Nov. following. 'Having,' says the testator, 'never observed that my son hath showed much taste or inclination, either for the entertainment or knowledge which study and learning afford, I give and bequeath all my books and mathematical instruments [with certain exceptions] to Christchurch College, in Oxford.' CROKER.

[657] His _Life of Swift_ is written in the form of _Letters to his Son, the Hon. Hamilton Boyle._ The fifteenth Letter, in which he finishes his criticism of _Gulliver's Travels_, affords a good instance of this 'studied variety of phrase.' 'I may finish my letter,' he writes, 'especially as the conclusion of it naturally turns my thoughts from Yahoos to one of the dearest pledges I have upon earth, yourself, to whom I am a most

Affectionate Father,

'ORRERY.'

See _ante_, i. 275-284, for Johnson's letters to Thomas Warton, many of which end 'in studied varieties of phrase.'

[658] _The Conquest of Granada_ was dedicated to the Duke of York. The conclusion is as follows:--'If at any time Almanzor fulfils the parts of personal valour and of conduct, of a soldier and of a general; or, if I could yet give him a character more advantageous that what he has, of the most unshaken friend, the greatest of subjects, and the best of masters; I should then draw all the world a true resemblance of your worth and virtues; at least as far as they are capable of being copied by the mean abilities of,

'Sir,

'Your Royal Highness's

'Most humble, and most

'Obedient servant,

'J. DRYDEN.'

[659] On the day of his coronation he was asked to pardon four young men who had broken the law against carrying arms. 'So long as I live,' he replied, 'every criminal must die.' 'He was inexorable in individual cases; he adhered to his laws with a rigour that amounted to cruelty, while in the framing of general rules we find him mild, yielding, and placable.' Ranke's _Popes_, ed. 1866, i. 307, 311.

[660] See _ante_, iii. 239, where he discusses the question of shooting a highwayman.

[661] In _The Rambler_, No. 78, he says:--'I believe men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they advance in age.'

[662] He passed over his own _Life of Savage_.

[663] 'When I was a young fellow, I wanted to write the _Life of Dryden' Ante_, iii. 71.

[664] See _ante_, p. 117.

[665] 'I asked a very learned minister in Sky, who had used all arts to make me believe the genuineness of the book, whether at last he believed it himself; but he would not answer. He wished me to be deceived for the honour of his country; but would not directly and formally deceive me. Yet has this man's testimony been publickly produced, as of one that held _Fingal_ to be the work of Ossian.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 115.

[666] A young lady had sung to him an Erse song. He asked her, 'What is that about? I question if she conceived that I did not understand it. For the entertainment of the company, said she. But, Madam, what is the meaning of it? It is a love song. This was all the intelligence that I could obtain; nor have I been able to procure the translation of a single line of Erse.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 146. See _post_, Oct. 16

[667] This droll quotation, I have since found, was from a song in honour of the Earl of Essex, called _Queen Elisabeth's Champion_, which is preserved in a collection of Old Ballads, in three volumes, published in London in different years, between 1720 and 1730. The full verse is as follows:--

'Oh! then bespoke the prentices all,
Living in London, both proper and tall,
In a kind letter sent straight to the Queen,
For Essex's sake they would fight all.
Raderer too, tandaro te,
Raderer, tandorer, tan do re.'

BOSWELL.

[668] La Condamine describes a tribe called the Tameos, on the north side of the river Tiger in South America, who have a word for _three_. He continues:--'Happily for those who have transactions with them, their arithmetic goes no farther. The Brazilian tongue, a language spoken by people less savage, is equally barren; the people who speak it, where more than three is to be expressed, are obliged to use the Portuguese.' Pinkerton's _Voyages_, xiv. 225.

[669] 'It was Addison's practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet deeper in absurdity. This artifice of mischief was admired by Stella; and Swift seems to approve her admiration.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 450. Swift, in his _Character of Mrs. Johnson _ (Stella), says:--'Whether this proceeded from her easiness in general, or from her indifference to persons, or from her despair of mending them, or from the same practice which she much liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine; but when she saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse she commonly gave, when her friends asked the reason, was, "That it prevented noise and saved time." Swift's _Works_, xiv. 254.

[670] In the Appendix to Blair's _Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian_ Macqueen is mentioned as one of his authorities for his statements.

[671] See _ante_, iv. 262, note.

[672] I think it but justice to say, that I believe Dr. Johnson meant to ascribe Mr. M'Queen's conduct to inaccuracy and enthusiasm, and did not mean any severe imputation against him. BOSWELL.

[673] In Baretti's trial (_ante_, ii. 97, note I) he seems to have given his evidence clearly. What he had to say, however, was not much.

[674] Boswell had spoken before to Johnson about this omission. _Ante_, ii. 92.