He said, "I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society." He certainly could not mean deep play.

My friend and I thought we should be more comfortable at the inn at Blackshields, two miles farther on. We therefore went thither in the evening, and he was very entertaining; but I have preserved nothing but the pleasing remembrance, and his verses on George the Second and Cibber, and his epitaph on Parnell, which he was then so good as to dictate to me. We breakfasted together next morning, and then the coach came, and took him up. He had, as one of his companions in it, as far as Newcastle, the worthy and ingenious Dr. Hope, botanical professor at Edinburgh. Both Dr. Johnson and he used to speak of their good fortune in thus accidentally meeting; for they had much instructive conversation, which is always a most valuable enjoyment, and, when found where it is not expected, is peculiarly relished.

I have now completed my account of our Tour to the Hebrides. I have brought Dr. Johnson down to Scotland, and seen him into the coach which in a few hours carried him back into England. He said to me often, that the time he spent in this Tour was the pleasantest part of his life, and asked me if I would lose the recollection of it for five hundred pounds. I answered I would not; and he applauded my setting such a value on an accession of new images in my mind.

Had it not been for me, I am persuaded Dr. Johnson never would have undertaken such a journey; and I must be allowed to assume some merit from having been the cause that our language has been enriched with such a book as that which he published on his return; a book which I never read but with the utmost admiration, as I had such opportunities of knowing from what very meagre materials it was composed.

But my praise may be supposed partial; and therefore I shall insert two testimonies, not liable to that objection, both written by gentlemen of Scotland, to whose opinions I am confident the highest respect will be paid, Lord Hailes and Mr. Dempster.

LORD HAILES TO BOSWELL.

"Newhailes, Feb. 6. 1775. "SIR, I have received much pleasure and much instruction from perusing the Journey to the Hebrides.' I admire the elegance and variety of description, and the lively picture of men and manners. I always approve of the moral, often of the political reflections. I love the benevolence of the author.

1 The late Dr. Baillie advised a gentleman whose official duties were of a very constant and engrossing nature, and whose health seemed to suffer from over-work, to play at cards in the evening, which would tend, he said, to quiet the mind, and to allay the anxiety created by the business of the day. CROKER, 1831. Myself, when over-worked at the Admiralty. But I did not follow the prescription of my

"Before the restoration, few trees were planted, unless by the monastic drones: their successors (and worthy patriots they were), the barons, first

The

cut down the trees, and then sold the estates. gentleman at St. Andrew's, who said that there were but two trees in Fife, ought to have added, that the elms of Balmerino were sold within these

twenty years, to make pumps for the fire-engines. "In J. Major de Gestis Scotorum, 1. i. c. 2., last edition, there is a singular passage :—

"Davidi Cranstoneo conterraneo, dum de prima

theologiæ licentia foret, duo ei consocii et familiares, et mei cum eo in artibus auditores, scilicet Jacobus Almain Senonensis, et Petrus Bruxcellensis, Prædicatoris ordinis, in Sorbonæ curia die Sorbonico

commilitonibus suis publice objecerunt, quod pane tellexerant, vescebantur, ut virum, quem cholericum avenaceo plebeii Scoti, sicut a quodam religioso innoverant, honestis salibus tentarent, qui hoc inficiari tanquam patriæ dedecus nisus est.'

66

Pray introduce our countryman, Mr. Licentiate David Cranston, to the acquaintance of Mr. Johnson. “The syllogism seems to have been this : —

They who feed on oatmeal are barbarians; But the Scots feed on oatmeal: - ErgoThe licentiate denied the minor.

I am, Sir, &c. "DAV. DALRYMPLE."

DEMPSTER TO BOSWELL.

Dunnichen, Feb. 16. 1775. "MY DEAR BOSWELL, I cannot omit a moment to return you my best thanks for the entertainment you have furnished me, my family, and guests, by the perusal of Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands;' and now for my sentiHis dements of it. I was well entertained. scriptions are accurate and vivid. He carried me the justice he has done to your humour and vivaon the tour along with him. I am pleased with city. The noise of the wind being all its own,' is a bon-mot, that it would have been a pity to have omitted, and a robbery not to have ascribed to its author."

"There is nothing in the book, from beginning to end, that a Scotchman need to take amiss. What he says of the country is true, and his observations on the people are what must naturally occur to a sensible, observing, and reflecting inhabitant of a convenient metropolis, where a man on thirty pounds a year may be better accommodated with all the little wants of life than Col or Sir Allen. reasons candidly about the second-sight; but I

He

kind physician and friend, and after an interval (Deo gratias) of six and thirty years of health, need not regret the omission. -CROKER, 1846.

2 "I know not that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other place [as in Col]; and Mr. Boswell observed, that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it." -Johnson's Journey. CROKER.

"In regard to the language, it has the merit of being all his own. Many words of foreign extraction are used, where, I believe, common ones would do as well, especially on familiar occasions. Yet I believe he could not express himself so forcibly in any other style. I am charmed with his researches concerning the Erse language, and the antiquity of their manuscripts. I am quite convinced; and I shall rank Ossian, and his Fingals and Oscars, amongst the nursery tales, not the true history of our country, in all time to come.

"Upon the whole the book cannot displease, for it has no pretensions. The author neither says he is a geographer, nor an antiquarian, nor very learned in the history of Scotland, nor a naturalist, nor a fossilist. The manners of the people, and the face of the country, are all he attempts to describe, or seems to have thought of. Much were it to be wished that they who have travelled into more remote, and of course more curious, regions, had all possessed his good sense. Of the state of learning his observations on Glasgow university show he has formed a very sound judgment. He understands our climate too, and he has accurately observed the changes, however slow and imperceptible to us, which Scotland has undergone, in consequence of the blessings of liberty and internal I could have drawn my pen through the story of the old woman at St. Andrew's, being the only silly thing in the book. He has taken the opportunity of ingrafting into the work several good observations, which I dare say he had made upon men and things before he set foot on Scotch ground, by which it is considerably enriched.' A long journey, like a tall may-pole, though not very beautiful itself, yet is pretty enough when ornamented with flowers and garlands; it furnishes a sort of cloak-pins for hanging the furniture of your mind upon; and whoever sets out upon a journey, without furnishing his mind previously with much study and useful knowledge, erects a may-pole in December, and puts up very useless cloak-pins.

peace.

"I hope the book will induce many of his countrymen to make the same jaunt, and help to intermix the more liberal part of them still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Scotch; who certainly would never have formed those combinations which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners. They would find us not deficient, at least in point

1 Mr. Orme, one of the ablest historians of this age, is of the same opinion. He said to me, "There are in that book thoughts which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished-like pebbles rolled in the ocean." BOSWELL.

2 Every reader will, I am sure, join with me in warm

of hospitality, and they would be ashamed ever after to abuse us in the mass.

So much for the Tour. I have now, for the first time in my life, passed a winter in the country; and never did three months roll on with more swiftness and satisfaction. I used not only to wonder at, but pity, those whose lot condemned them to winter any where but in either of the capitals. But every place has its charms to a cheerful mind. I am busy planting and taking measures for opening the summer campaign in farming; and I find I have an excellent resource, when revolutions in politics perhaps, and revolutions of the sun for certain, will make it decent for me to retreat behind the ranks of the more forward in life.

"I am glad to hear the last was a very busy week with you. I see you as counsel in some causes which must have opened a charming field for your humorous vein. As it is more uncommon, so I verily believe it is more useful than the more serious exercise of reason; and, to a man who is to appear in public, more eclat is to be gained, sometimes more money too, by a bon-mot, than a learned speech. It is the fund of natural humour which Lord North possesses, that makes him so much the favourite of the house, and so able, because so amiable, a leader of a party.

"I have now finished my Tour of Seven Pages. In what remains, I beg leave to offer my compliments, and those of ma très chère femme, to you and Mrs. Boswell. Pray unbend the busy brow, and frolic a little in a letter to, my dear Boswell, your affectionate friend, GEORGE DEMPSTER," "

I shall also present the public with a correspondence with the laird of Rasay, concerning a passage in the "Journey to the Western Islands," which shows Dr. Johnson in a very amiable light.

RASAY TO BOSWELL.

"Rasay, April 10. 1775. "DEAR SIR,- I take this occasion of returning you my most hearty thanks for the civilities shown to my daughter by you and Mrs. Boswell. Yet, though she has informed me that I am under this obligation, I should very probably have deferred troubling you with making my acknowledgments at present, if I had not seen Dr. Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Isles,' in which he has been pleased to make a very friendly mention of my family, for which I am surely obliged to him, as being more than an equivalent for the reception you and he met with. Yet there is one paragraph I should have been glad he had omitted, which I am sure was owing to misinformation; that is, that I had acknowledged Macleod to be my chief, though my ancestors disputed the pre-eminence for a long tract of time.

"I never had occasion to enter seriously on this argument with the present laird, or his grandfather,

admiration of the truly patriotic writer of this letter. I knew not which most to applaud, — that good sense and liberality of mind which could see and admit the defects of his native country, to which no man is a more zealous friend; or that candour which induced him to give just praise to the minister whom he honestly and strenuously opposed. -BOSWELL.

When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns," I feel an impression at once awful and tender.- Requiescant in pace!

It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I repeat the answer which I made to that friend: "Few, very few, need be afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge,

Johnson gives Mrs. Thrale the following account of this affair:

"I have offended; and what is stranger, have justly offended, the nation of Rasay. If they could come hither, they would be as fierce as the Americans. Rashy has written to Boswell an account of the injury done him by representing his house as subordinate to that of Dunvegan. Boswell has his letter, and, I believe, copied my answer. I have appeased him, if a degraded chief can possibly be appeased: but it will be thirteen days-days of resentment and discontentbefore my recantation can reach him. Many a dirk will imagination, during that interval, fix in my heart. I really question if at this time my life would not be in danger, if distance did not secure it. Boswell will find his way to Streatham before he goes, and will detail this great affair."Letters, 12th May, 1775. CROKER.

2 In justice both to Sir William Forbes and myself, it is proper to mention, that the papers which were submitted to his perusal contained only an account of our Tour from the time that Dr. Johnson and I set out from Edinburgh, and consequently did not contain the eulogium on Sir William Forbes (p. 271.), which he never saw till this book appeared in print; nor did he even know, when he wrote the above letter, that this Journal was to be published. - BOSWELL.

because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the Bon Chretien ?”

On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised. To it we owe all those interesting apophthegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus have transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining collections which the French have made under the title of "Ana," affixed to some celebrated name. To it we owe the "TableTalk" of Selden, the "Conversation" between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's "Anecdotes of Pope," and other delighted should we have been, if thus introvaluable remains in our own language. How duced into the company of Shakspeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely any thing but their admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known their petty habits, their characteristic manners, their modes of composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their contemporaries! All these are now irrecoverably lost. Considering how many of the strongest and most brilliant effusions of exalted intellect must have perished, how much is it to be regretted that all men of distinguished wisdom and wit have not been attended by friends, of taste enough to relish, and abilities enough to register their conversation:

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."
"18

They whose inferior exertions are recorded, as serving to explain or illustrate the sayings of such men, may be proud of being thus associated, and of their names being transmitted to posterity, by being appended to an illustrious character.

Before I conclude, I think it proper to say, that I have suppressed every thing which I thought could really hurt any one now living.

3"Before great Agamemnon reign'd,

Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave,
Whose huge ambition's now contain'd
In the small compass of a grave;
In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown;
No bard had they to make all time their own.'
Hor. Od. iv. 9. Francis.- CROKER.

4 Having found, on a revision of the first edition of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me, which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the subsequent editions. I was pleased to find that they did not amount in the whole to a page. If any of the same kind are yet left, it is owing to inadvertence alone, no man being more unwilling to give pain to others than I am. A contemptible scribbler, of whom I have learned no more than that, after having disgraced and deserted the clerical character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely asserted that the passages omitted were defamatory, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory. The last insinuation I took the trouble publicly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in " the lie o'erthrown." As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting

Vanity and self-conceit indeed may sometimes suffer. With respect to what is related, I considered it my duty to "extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice;" and with those lighter strokes of Dr. Johnson's satire, proceeding from a warmth and quickness of ímagination, not from any malevolence of heart, and which, on account of their excellence, could not be omitted, I trust that they who are the subject of them have good sense and good temper enough not to be displeased.

I have only to add, that I shall ever reflect with great pleasure on a Tour, which has been the means of preserving so much of the enlightened and instructive conversation of one whose virtues will, I hope, ever be an object of imitation, and whose powers of mind were so extraordinary, that ages may revolve before such a man shall again appear.

CHAPTER XLV.

1773-1774.

Recapitulation of the Tour.- Letters to Boswell, &c. - Davies publishes his "Fugitive Pieces" without his Knowledge. Writes his Tour. - Religious Festivals and Pilgrimages. Death of Goldsmith. – Greek Epitaph.

His stay in Scotland was from the 18th of August, on which day he arrived, till the 22d of November, when he set out on his return to London; and I believe ninety-four days were never passed by any man in a more vigorous exertion. He came by the way of Berwickupon-Tweed to Edinburgh, where he remained a few days, and then went by St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, Inverness, and Fort Augustus, to the Hebrides, to visit which was the principal object he had in view. He visited the isles of Sky, Rasay, Col, Mull, Inchkenneth, and Icolmkill. He travelled through Argyleshire by Inverary, and from thence by Lochlomond and Dunbarton to Glasgow, then by Loudon to Auchinleck in Ayrshire, the seat of my family, and then by Hamilton, back to Edinburgh, where he again spent some time.

He thus saw the four universities of Scotland, its three principal cities, and as much of

it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other will find that the passages omitted were not in the least degree of that nature, but exactly such as I have represented them in the former part of this note, the hasty effusion of momentary feelings which the delicacy of politeness should have suppressed. Boswell.

I believe the scribbler alluded to was William Thompson, author of The Man in the Moon, and other satirical novels, half clever, half crazy kind of works. He was once a member of the kirk of Scotland, but being deposed by the presbytery of Auchterarder, became an author of all works in London, and could seldom finish a work, on whatever subject, without giving a slap by the way to that same presbytery with the unpronounceable name." Boswell's denial of having retracted upon compulsion refutes what was said by Peter Pindar and others about "M'Donald's rage." WALTER SCOTT. See antè, p. 312. n. 1. et seq. — C.

the Highland and insular life as was sufficient for his philosophical contemplation. I had the pleasure of accompanying him during the whole of his journey.

He was respectfully entertained by the great, the learned, and the elegant, wherever he went; nor was he less delighted with the hospitality which he experienced in humbler life.'

His various adventures, and the force and vivacity of his mind, as exercised during this peregrination, upon innumerable topics, have been faithfully, and to the best of my abilities, displayed in my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," to which, as the public has been pleased to honour it by a very extensive circulation, I beg leave to refer', as to a separate and remarkable portion of his life, which may be there seen in detail, and which exhibits as striking a view of his powers in conversation, as his works do of his excellence in writing. Nor can I deny to myself the very flattering gratification of inserting here the character which my friend Mr. Courtenay has been pleased to give of that work:

"With Reynolds' pencil, vivid, bold, and true,
So fervent Boswell gives him to our view:
In every trait we see his mind expand;
The master rises by the pupil's hand :
We love the writer, praise his happy vein,
Graced with the naïveté of the sage Montaigne;
Hence not alone are brighter parts display'd,
But e'en the specks of character pourtray'd:
We see the Rambler with fastidious smile
Mark the lone tree, and note the heath-clad isle ;
But when the heroic tale of 'Flora's charms,
Deck'd in a kilt, he wields a chieftain's arms:
The tuneful piper sounds a martial strain,
And Samuel sings, The king shall have his
ain.""

He was long remembered amongst the lower orders of Hebrideans by the title of the Sassenach More, the big Englishman. WALTER SCOTT.

2 A collation of the original MS., lately in the possession of the Rev. Archdeacon Butler, of Shrewsbury, but now in the British Museum, has confirmed some conjectural emendations which I had made on Mr. Duppa's text, and has supplied other corrections and additions.-CROKER, 1835.

3 The celebrated Flora Macdonald. COURTENAY. 4 In this he showed a very acute penetration. My wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention while he was our guest; so that I wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady. Besides, she had not that