Sir W. Forbes's letter to Boswell.

471

'I hope I may now venture to desire that my compliments may be made, and my gratitude expressed, to Lady Rasay, Mr. Malcolm M'Leod, Mr. Donald M'Queen, and all the gentlemen and all the ladies whom I saw in the island of Rasay; a place which I remember with too much pleasure and too much kindness, not to be sorry that my ignorance, or hasty persuasion, should, for a single moment, have violated its tranquillity.

'I beg you all to forgive an undesigned and involuntary injury, and to consider me as,

'Sir, your most obliged,

London, May 6, 1775.'

And most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON'.'

It would be improper for me to boast of my own labours; but I cannot refrain from publishing such praise as I received from such a man as Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, after the perusal of the original manuscript of my Journal'. 'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'MY DEAR SIR,

'Edinburgh, March 7, 1777.

'I ought to have thanked you sooner, for your very obliging letter, and for the singular confidence you are pleased to place in me, when you trust me with such a curious and valuable deposit as the papers you have sent me3. Be assured I have a due sense

'Rasay was highly gratified, and afterwards visited and dined with Dr. Johnson at his house in London. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on May 12, 1775 :—' '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. Rasay 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 discontent-before 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.' Piozzi Letters, i. 216.

In like manner he communicated to Sir William Forbes part of his journal from which he made the Life of Johnson. Ante, iii. 237.

In justice both to Sir William Forbes, and myself, it is proper to

of

472

Boswell's defence of himself.

of this favour, and shall faithfully and carefully return them to you. You may rely that I shall neither copy any part, nor permit the papers to be seen.

'They contain a curious picture of society, and form a journal on the most instructive plan that can possibly be thought of; for I am not sure that an ordinary observer would become so well acquainted either with Dr. Johnson, or with the manners of the Hebrides, by a personal intercourse, as by a perusal of your Journal. 'I am, very truly, 'Dear Sir,

'Your most obedient,

'And affectionate humble servant, 'WILLIAM FORBES.'

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, be cause 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,

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 (p. 57), and consequently did not contain the eulogium on Sir William Forbes, (p. 26), 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. This note is not in the first edition.

'Hamlet, act iii. sc. i.

'Both Nonpareil and Bon Chretien are in Johnson's Dictionary; Nonpareil is defined as a kind of apple, and Bon Chretien as a species of pear.

and

Boswell's defence of himself.

473

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 Table-Talk of Selden', the Conversation between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's Anecdotes of Pope', and other valuable remains in our own language. How delighted should we have been, if thus introduced 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'.'

They whose inferiour 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

See ante, p. 354. 2 See ante, iv. 10. ''Dryden's contemporaries, however they reverenced his genius, left his life unwritten; and nothing therefore can be known beyond what casual mention and uncertain tradition have supplied.' Johnson's Works, vii. 245. See ante, iii. 81, 82.

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.'

FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, iv. 9, 25.

transmitted

474

Passages suppressed.

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

'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 publickly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in 'the lie o'erthrown.' [Prologue to the Satires, 1. 350.] As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting 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. In the second edition this note ended at the first paragraph, the latter part being added in the third. For the 'few observations omitted' see ante, pp. 168, 435, 443. The 'contemptible scribbler' was, I believe, John Wolcot, better known by his assumed name of Peter Pindar. He had been a clergyman. In his Epistle to Boswell (Works, i. 219), he says in reference to the passages about Sir A. Macdonald (afterwards Lord Macdonald) :—' A letter of severe remonstrance was sent to Mr. B., who, in consequence, omitted in the second edition of his Journal what is so generally pleasing to the public, viz., the scandalous passages relative to that nobleman.' It was in a letter to the Gent. Mag. 1786, p. 285, that Boswell 'publickly disproved the insinuation' made 'in a late scurrilous publication' that these passages were omitted in consequence of a letter from his Lordship. Nor was any application,' he continues, 'made to me by the nobleman alluded to at any time to make any alteration in my Journal.'

any

any one now living. 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 imagination, 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.

1

'Nothing extenuate

Nor set down aught in malice.'

Othello, act v. sc. 2.

APPENDIX.