You, madam, will have a great loss; a greater than is common in the loss of a parent. Fill your mind with hope of her happiness, and turn your thoughts first to him who gives and takes away, in whose presence the living and dead are standing together. Then remember, that when this mournful duty is paid, others yet remain of equal obligation, and, we may hope, of less painful performance. Grief is a species of idleness, and the necessity of attention to the present preserves us, by the merciful disposition of providence, from being lacerated and devoured by sorrow for the past. You must think on your husband and your children, and do what this dear lady has done for you.

Not to come to town while the great struggle continues is, undoubtedly, well resolved. But do not harass yourself into danger; you owe the care of your health to all that love you, at least to all whom it is your duty to love. You cannot give such a mother too much, if you do not give her what belongs to another. I am, &c.

XIV.—To MRS. THRALE.

April 27, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,—Hope is more pleasing than fear, but not less fallacious; you know, when you do not try to deceive yourself, that the disease, which at last is to destroy, must be gradually growing worse, and that it is vain to wish for more than, that the descent to death may be slow and easy. In this wish I join with you, and hope it will be granted. Dear, dear lady, whenever she is lost she will be missed, and whenever she is remembered she will be lamented. Is it a good or an evil to me, that she now loves me? It is surely a good; for you will love me better, and we shall have a new principle of concord; and I shall be happier with honest sorrow, than with sullen indifference: and far happier still than with counterfeited sympathy.

I am reasoning upon a principle very far from certain, a confidence of survivance. You or I, or both, may be called into the presence of the supreme judge before her. I have lived a life of which I do not like the review. Surely I shall, in time, live better.

I sat down with an intention to write high compliments; but my thoughts have taken another course, and some other time must now serve to tell you with what other emotions, benevolence, and fidelity, I am, &c.

XV.—To THE SAME.

May 17, 1773.

MADAM,—Never imagine that your letters are long; they are always too short for my curiosity. I do not know that I was ever content with a single perusal.

Of dear Mrs. Salusbury I never expect much better news than you send me; de pis en pis is the natural and certain course of her dreadful malady. I am content, when it leaves her ease enough for the exercise of her mind. Why should Mr. **** suppose, that what I took the liberty of suggesting, was concerted with you? He does not know how much I revolve his affairs, and how honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let the hint take some hold of his mind.

Your declaration to Miss **** is more general than my opinions allow. I think an unlimited promise of acting by the opinion of another so wrong, that nothing, or hardly anything, can make it right. All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future which has not been given us. They are, I think, a crime, because they resign that life to chance which God has given us to be regulated by reason; and superinduce a kind of fatality, from which it is the great privilege of our nature to be free. Unlimited obedience is due only to the universal father of heaven and earth. My parents may be mad and foolish; may be wicked and malicious; may be erroneously religious, or absurdly scrupulous. I am not bound to compliance with mandates, either positive or negative, which either religion condemns, or reason rejects. There wanders about the world a wild notion, which extends over marriage more than over any other transaction. If Miss **** followed a trade, would it be said, that she was bound, in conscience, to give or refuse credit at her father's choice? And is not marriage a thing in which she is more interested, and has, therefore, more right of choice? When I may suffer for my own crimes, when I may be sued for my own debts, I may judge, by parity of reason, for my own happiness. The parent's moral right can arise only from his kindness, and his civil right only from his money.

Conscience cannot dictate obedience to the wicked, or compliance with the foolish; and of interest mere prudence is the judge.

If the daughter is bound without a promise, she promises nothing; and if she is not bound, she promises too much.

What is meant by tying up money in trade I do not understand No money is so little tied, as that which is employed in trade. Mr. ****, perhaps, only means, that in consideration of money to be advanced, he will oblige his son to be a trader. This is reasonable enough. Upon ten thousand pounds, diligently occupied, they may live in great plenty and splendour, without the mischiefs of idleness.

I can write a long letter, as well as my mistress; and shall be glad that my long letters may be as welcome as hers.

My nights are grown again very uneasy and troublesome. I know not that the country will mend them; but I hope your company will mend my days. Though I cannot now expect much attention, and would not wish for more than can be spared from the poor dear lady, yet I shall see you and hear you every now and then; and to see and hear you, is always to hear wit, and to see virtue.

I shall I hope, see you to-morrow, and a little on the two next days; and with that little I must, for the present, try to be contented. I am, &c.

XVI.—To MRS. THRALE.

August 12, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,—We left London on Friday, the 6th, not very early, and travelled, without any memorable accident, through a country which I had seen before. In the evening I was not well, and was forced to stop at Stilton, one stage short of Stamford, where we intended to have lodged.

On the 7th we passed through Stamford and Grantham, and dined at Newark, where I had only time to observe, that the market-place was uncommonly spacious and neat. In London, we should call it a square, though the sides were neither straight nor parallel. We came, at night, to Doncaster, and went to church in the morning, where Chambers found the monument of Robert of Doncaster, who says on his stone something like this:—What I gave, that I have; what I spent, that I had; what I left, that I lost.—So saith Robert of Doncaster, who reigned in the world sixty-seven years, and all that time lived not one. Here we were invited to dinner, and, therefore, made no great haste away.

We reached York, however, that night; I was much disordered with old complaints. Next morning we saw the minster, an edifice of loftiness and elegance, equal to the highest hopes of architecture. I remember nothing, but the dome of St. Paul's, that can be compared with the middle walk. The chapter-house is a circular building, very stately, but, I think, excelled by the chapter-house of Lincoln.

I then went to see the ruins of the abbey, which are almost vanished, and I remember nothing of them distinct. The next visit was to the gaol, which they call the castle; a fabrick built lately, such is terrestrial mutability, out of the materials of the ruined abbey. The under gaoler was very officious to show his fetters, in which there was no contrivance. The head gaoler came in, and seeing me look, I suppose, fatigued, offered me wine, and, when I went away, would not suffer his servant to take money. The gaol is accounted the best in the kingdom, and you find the gaoler deserving of his dignity.

We dined at York, and went on to Northallerton, a place of which I know nothing, but that it afforded us a lodging on Monday night, and about two hundred and seventy years ago gave birth to Roger Ascham.

Next morning we changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.

The church is built crosswise, with a fine spire, and might invite a traveller to survey it; but I, perhaps, wanted vigour, and thought I wanted time.

The next stage brought us to Durham, a place of which Mr. Thrale bade me take particular notice. The bishop's palace has the appearance of an old feudal castle, built upon an eminence, and looking down upon the river, upon which was formerly thrown a drawbridge, as I suppose, to be raised at night, lest the Scots should pass it.

The cathedral has a massiness and solidity, such as I have seen in no other place; it rather awes than pleases, as it strikes with a kind of gigantick dignity, and aspires to no other praise than that of rocky solidity and indeterminate duration. I had none of my friends resident, and, therefore, saw but little. The library is mean and scanty.

At Durham, beside all expectation, I met an old friend: Miss Fordyce is married there to a physician. We met, I think, with honest kindness on both sides. I thought her much decayed, and having since heard that the banker had involved her husband in his extensive ruin, I cannot forbear to think, that I saw in her withered features more impression of sorrow than that of time—

"Qua terra patet, sera regnat Erinnys."

He that wanders about the world sees new forms of human misery, and if he chances to meet an old friend, meets a face darkened with troubles.

On Tuesday night we came hither; yesterday I took some care of myself, and to-day I am quite polite. I have been taking a view of all that could be shown me, and find that all very near to nothing. You have often heard me complain of finding myself disappointed by books of travels; I am afraid travel itself will end likewise in disappointment. One town, one country, is very like another: civilized nations have the same customs, and barbarous nations have the same nature: there are, indeed, minute discriminations both of places and manners, which, perhaps, are not wanting of curiosity, but which a traveller seldom stays long enough to investigate and compare. The dull utterly neglect them; the acute see a little, and supply the rest with fancy and conjecture.

I shall set out again to-morrow; but I shall not, I am afraid, see Alnwick, for Dr. Percy is not there. I hope to lodge to-morrow night at Berwick, and the next at Edinburgh, where I shall direct Mr. Drummond, bookseller at Ossian's head, to take care of my letters.

I hope the little dears are all well, and that my dear master and mistress may go somewhither; but, wherever you go, do not forget, madam, your most humble servant.

I am pretty well.

August 15.

Thus far I had written at Newcastle. I forgot to send it. I am now at Edinburgh; and have been this day running about. I run pretty well.

XVII.—To MRS. THRALE.

Edinburgh, August 17, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,—On the 13th, I left Newcastle, and, in the afternoon, came to Alnwick, where we were treated with great civility by the duke: I went through the apartments, walked on the wall, and climbed the towers. That night we lay at Belford, and, on the next night, came to Edinburgh. On Sunday (15th) I went to the English chapel. After dinner, Dr. Robertson came in, and promised to show me the place. On Monday I saw their publick buildings: the cathedral, which I told Robertson I wished to see, because it had once been a church; the courts of justice, the parliament-house, the advocates' library, the repository of records, the college, and its library, and the palace, particularly the old tower, where the king of Scotland seized David Rizzio in the queen's presence. Most of their buildings are very mean; and the whole town bears some resemblance to the old part of Birmingham.

Boswell has very handsome and spacious rooms, level with the ground, on one side of the house, and, on the other, four stories high.

At dinner, on Monday, were the dutchess of Douglas, an old lady, who talks broad Scotch with a paralytick voice, and is scarcely understood by her own countrymen; the lord chief baron, sir Adolphus Oughton, and many more. At supper there was such a conflux of company, that I could scarcely support the tumult. I have never been well in the whole journey, and am very easily disordered.

This morning I saw, at breakfast, Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to, by a poor scholar, in Latin, Greek, and French. He was, originally, a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence. Tomorrow our journey begins; I know not when I shall write again. I am but poorly. I am, &c.

XVIII.—To MRS. THRALE.

Bamff, August 25, 1773.

Dear Madam,—It has so happened, that, though I am perpetually thinking on you, I could seldom find opportunity to write; I have, in fourteen days, sent only one letter; you must consider the fatigues of travel, and the difficulties encountered in a strange country.

August 18th. I passed, with Boswell, the frith of Forth, and began our journey; in the passage we observed an island, which I persuaded my companions to survey. We found it a rock somewhat troublesome to climb, about a mile long, and half a mile broad; in the middle were the ruins of an old fort, which had, on one of the stones,—"Maria Re. 1564." It had been only a blockhouse, one story high. I measured two apartments, of which the walls were entire, and found them twenty-seven feet long, and twenty-three broad. The rock had some grass and many thistles; both cows and sheep were grazing. There was a spring of water. The name is Inchkeith. Look on your maps. This visit took about an hour. We pleased ourselves with being in a country all our own, and then went back to the boat, and landed at Kinghorn, a mean town; and, travelling through Kirkaldie, a very long town, meanly built, and Cowpar, which I could not see, because it was night, we came late to St. Andrew's, the most ancient of the Scotch universities, and once the see of the primate of Scotland. The inn was full; but lodgings were provided for us at the house of the professor of rhetorick, a man of elegant manners, who showed us, in the morning, the poor remains of a stately cathedral, demolished in Knox's reformation, and now only to be imagined, by tracing its foundation, and contemplating the little ruins that are left. Here was once a religious house. Two of the vaults or cellars of the sub-prior are even yet entire. In one of them lives an old woman, who claims an hereditary residence in it, boasting that her husband was the sixth tenant of this gloomy mansion, in a lineal descent, and claims, by her marriage with this lord of the cavern, an alliance with the Bruces. Mr. Boswell staid awhile to interrogate her, because he understood her language; she told him, that she and her cat lived together; that she had two sons somewhere, who might, perhaps, be dead; that, when there were quality in the town, notice was taken of her, and that now she was neglected, but did not trouble them. Her habitation contained all that she had; her turf, for fire, was laid in one place, and her balls of coal-dust in another, but her bed seemed to be clean. Boswell asked her, if she never heard any noises; but she could tell him of nothing supernatural, though she often wandered in the night among the graves and ruins; only she had, sometimes, notice, by dreams, of the death of her relations. We then viewed the remains of a castle, on the margin of the sea, in which the archbishops resided, and in which cardinal Beatoun was killed.

The professors, who happened to be readout in the vacation, made a publick dinner, and treated us very kindly and respectfully. They showed us their colleges, in one of which there is a library that, for luminousness and elegance, may vie, at least, with the new edifice at Streatham. But learning seems not to prosper among them; one of their colleges has been lately alienated, and one of their churches lately deserted. An experiment was made of planting a shrubbery in the church, but it did not thrive.

Why the place should thus fall to decay, I know not; for education, such as is here to be had, is sufficiently cheap. The term, or, as they call it, their session, lasts seven months in the year, which the students of the highest rank and greatest expense, may pass here for twenty pounds, in which are included board, lodging, books, and the continual instruction of three professors.

20th. We left St. Andrew's, well satisfied with our reception, and, crossing the frith of Tay, came to Dundee, a dirty, despicable town. We passed, afterwards, through Aberbrothick, famous once for an abbey, of which there are only a few fragments left; but those fragments testify that the fabrick was once of great extent, and of stupendous magnificence. Two of the towers are yet standing, though shattered; into one of them Boswell climbed, but found the stairs broken: the way into the other we did not see, and had not time to search; I believe it might be ascended, but the top, I think, is open.

We lay at Montrose, a neat place, with a spacious area for the market, and an elegant town-house.

21st. We travelled towards Aberdeen, another university, and, in the way, dined at lord Monboddo's, the Scotch judge, who has lately written a strange book about the origin of language, in which he traces monkeys up to men, and says that, in some countries, the human species have tails like other beasts. He inquired for these long-tailed men of Banks, and was not well pleased, that they had not been found in all his peregrination. He talked nothing of this to me, and I hope we parted friends; for we agreed pretty well, only we disputed in adjusting the claims of merit between a shopkeeper of London, and a savage of the American wildernesses. Our opinions were, I think, maintained, on both sides, without full conviction: Monboddo declared boldly for the savage; and I, perhaps, for that reason, sided with the citizen.

We came late to Aberdeen, where I found my dear mistress's letter, and learned that all our little people were happily recovered of the measles. Every part of your letter was pleasing.

There are two cities of the name of Aberdeen: the old town, built about a mile inland, once the see of a bishop, which contains the king's college, and the remains of the cathedral; and the new town, which stands, for the sake of trade, upon a frith or arm of the sea, so that ships rest against the quay.

The two cities have their separate magistrates; and the two colleges are, in effect, two universities, which confer degrees independently of each other.

New Aberdeen is a large town, built almost wholly of that granite which is used for the new pavement in London, which, hard as it is, they square with very little difficulty. Here I first saw the women in plaids. The plaid makes, at once, a hood and cloak, without cutting or sewing, merely by the manner of drawing the opposite sides over the shoulders. The maids, at the inns, run over the house barefoot; and children, not dressed in rags, go without shoes or stockings. Shoes are, indeed, not yet in universal use; they came late into this country. One of the professors told us, as we were mentioning a fort, built by Cromwell, that the country owed much of its present industry to Cromwell's soldiers. They taught us, said he, to raise cabbage, and make shoes. How they lived without shoes may yet be seen; but, in the passage through villages, it seems to him, that surveys their gardens, that when they had not cabbage, they had nothing.

Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrew's, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April. The academical buildings seem rather to advance than decline. They showed their libraries, which were not very splendid, but some manuscripts were so exquisitely penned, that I wished my dear mistress to have seen them. I had an unexpected pleasure, by finding an old acquaintance, now professor of physick, in the king's college: we were, on both sides, glad of the interview, having not seen, nor, perhaps, thought on one another, for many years; but we had no emulation, nor had either of us risen to the other's envy, and our old kindness was easily renewed. I hope we shall never try the effect of so long an absence, and that I shall always be, madam your, &c.

XIX.—To MRS. THRALE.

Inverness, August 28, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,—August 23rd, I had the honour of attending the lord provost of Aberdeen, and was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise! there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed. I wore my patent of freedom, pro more, in my hat, from the new town to the old, about a mile. I then dined with my friend, the professor of physick, at his house, and saw the king's college. Boswell was very angry, that the Aberdeen professors would not talk. When I was at the English church, in Aberdeen, I happened to be espied by lady Di. Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to lord Errol's house, called Slane's castle We went thither on the next day, (24th of August,) and found a house, not old, except but one tower, built on the margin of the sea, upon a rock, scarce accessible from the sea; at one corner, a tower makes a perpendicular continuation of the lateral surface of the rock, so that it is impracticable to walk round; the house inclosed a square court, and on all sides within the court is a piazza, or gallery, two stories high. We came in, as we were invited to dinner, and, after dinner, offered to go; but lady Errol sent us word by Mr. Boyd, that if we went before lord Errol came home, we must never be forgiven, and ordered out the coach to show us two curiosities. We were first conducted, by Mr. Boyd, to Dunbuys, or the yellow rock. Dunbuys is a rock, consisting of two protuberances, each, perhaps, one hundred yards round, joined together by a narrow neck, and separated from the land by a very narrow channel or gully. These rocks are the haunts of seafowl, whose clang, though this is not their season, we heard at a distance. The eggs and the young are gathered here, in great numbers, at the time of breeding. There is a bird here, called a coot, which, though not much bigger than a duck, lays a larger egg than a goose. We went then to see the Buller, or Bouilloir, of Buchan: Buchan is the name of the district, and the Buller is a small creek, or gulf, into which the sea flows through an arch of the rock. We walked round it, and saw it black, at a great depth. It has its name from the violent ebullition of the water, when high winds or high tides drive it up the arch into the basin. Walking a little farther, I spied some boats, and told my companions that we would go into the Buller and examine it. There was no danger; all was calm; we went through the arch, and found ourselves in a narrow gulf, surrounded by craggy rocks, of height not stupendous, but, to a mediterranean visitor, uncommon. On each side was a cave, of which the fisherman knew not the extent, in which smugglers hide their goods, and sometimes parties of pleasure take a dinner. I am, &c.

XX.—To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, September 6, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,—I am now looking on the sea, from a house of sir Alexander Macdonald, in the isle of Skie. Little did I once think 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. Our design is to visit several of the smaller islands, and then pass over to the south-west of Scotland.

I returned from the sight of Buller's Buchan to lord Errol's, and, having seen his library, had, for a time, only to look upon the sea, which rolled between us and Norway. Next morning, August 25th, we continued our journey through a country not uncultivated, but so denuded of its woods, that, in all this journey, I had not travelled a hundred yards between hedges, or seen five trees fit for the carpenter. A few small plantations may be found, but I believe scarcely any thirty years old; at least, they are all posterior to the union. This day we dined with a country-gentleman, who has in his grounds the remains of a Druid's temple, which, when it is complete, is nothing more than a circle, or double circle, of stones, placed at equal distances, with a flat stone, perhaps an altar, at a certain point, and a stone, taller than the rest, at the opposite point. The tall stone is erected, I think, at the south. Of these circles, there are many in all the unfrequented parts of the island. The inhabitants of these parts respect them as memorials of the sculpture of some illustrious person. Here I saw a few trees. We lay at Bamff.

August 26th. We dined at Elgin, where we saw the ruins of a noble cathedral; the chapter-house is yet standing. A great part of Elgin is built with small piazzas to the lower story. We went on to Foris, over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, but had no adventure; only 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. We rested at Foris.

A very great proportion of the people are barefoot; shoes are not yet considered as necessaries of life. It is still the custom to send out the sons of gentlemen without them into the streets and ways. There are more beggars than I have ever seen in England; they beg, if not silently, yet very modestly.

Next day we came to Nairn, a miserable town, but a royal burgh, of which the chief annual magistrate is styled lord provost. In the neighbourhood we saw the castle of the old thane of Cawdor. There is one ancient tower, with its battlements and winding stairs, yet remaining; the rest of the house is, though not modern, of later erection.

On the 28th we went to Fort George, which is accounted the most regular fortification in the island. The major of artillery walked with us round the walls, and showed us the principles upon which every part was constructed, and the way in which it could be defended. We dined with the governour, sir Eyre Coote, and his officers. It was a very pleasant and instructive day; but nothing puts my honoured mistress out of my mind.

At night we came to Inverness, the last considerable town in the north, where we staid all the next day, for it was Sunday, and saw the ruins of what is called Macbeth's castle. It never was a large house, but was strongly situated. From Inverness we were to travel on horseback.

August 30th. We set out with four horses. We had two highlanders to run by us, who were active, officious, civil, and hardy. Our journey was, for many miles, along a military way, made upon the banks of Lough Ness, a water about eighteen miles long, but not, I think, half a mile broad. Our horses were not bad, and 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, and the rocks beyond the water, on the right, stood sometimes horrid, and wild, and sometimes opened into a kind of bay, in which there was a spot of cultivated ground, yellow with corn. 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 show in any other place.

You are not to suppose, that here are to be any more towns or inns. We came to a cottage, which they call the General's Hut, where we alighted to dine, and had eggs and bacon, and mutton, with wine, rum, and whiskey. I had water.

At a bridge over the river, which runs into the Ness the rocks rise on three sides, with a direction almost perpendicular, to a great height; they are, in part, covered with trees, and exhibit a kind of dreadful magnificence:—standing like the barriers of nature, placed to keep different orders of being in perpetual separation. Near this bridge is the fall of Fiers, a famous cataract, of which, by clambering over the rocks, we obtained a view. The water was low, and, therefore, we had only the pleasure of knowing that rain would make it, at once, pleasing and formidable; there will then be a mighty flood, foaming along a rocky channel, frequently obstructed by protuberances, and exasperated by reverberation, at last precipitated with a sudden descent, and lost in the depth of a gloomy chasm.

We came, somewhat late, to Fort Augustus, where the lieutenant-governour met us beyond the gates, and apologized that, at that hour, he could not, by the rules of a garrison, admit us, otherwise than at a narrow door, which only one can enter at a time. We were well entertained and well lodged, and, next morning, after having viewed the fort, we pursued our journey.

Our way now lay over the mountains, which are not to be passed by climbing them directly, but by traversing; so that, as we went forward, we saw our baggage following us below, in a direction exactly contrary. There is, in these ways, much labour, but little danger, and, perhaps, other places, of which very terrifick representations are made, are not, in themselves, more formidable. These roads have all been made by hewing the rock away with pickaxes, or bursting it with gunpowder. The stones, so separated, are often piled loose, as a wall by the wayside. We saw an inscription, importing the year in which one of the regiments made two thousand yards of the road eastward.

After tedious travel of some hours, we came to what, I believe, we must call a village, a place where there were three huts built of turf; at one of which we were to have our dinner and our bed, for we could not reach any better place that night. This place is called Enoch in Glenmorrison. The house, in which we lodged, was distinguished by a chimney, the rest had only a hole for the smoke. Here we had eggs, and mutton, and a chicken, and a sausage, and rum. In the afternoon tea was made by a very decent girl in a printed linen: she engaged me so much, that I made her a present of Cocker's arithmetick. I am, &c.

XXI.—To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, Sept. 14,1773.

DEAREST MADAM,—The post, which comes but once a week into these parts, is so soon to go, that I have not time to go on where I left off in my last letter. I have been several days in the island of Raarsa, and am now again in the isle of Skie, but at the other end of it.

Skie is almost equally divided between the two great families of Macdonald and Macleod, other proprietors having only small districts. The two great lords do not know, within twenty square miles, the contents of their own territories.

—kept up but ill the reputation of highland hospitality; we are now with Macleod, quite at the other end of the island, where there is a fine young gentleman and fine ladies. The ladies are studying Erse. I have a cold, and am miserably deaf, and am troublesome to lady Macleod; I force her to speak loud, but she will seldom speak loud enough.

Raarsa is an island about fifteen miles long and two broad, under the dominion of one gentleman, who has three sons and ten daughters; the eldest is the beauty of this part of the world, and has been polished at Edinburgh: they sing and dance, and, without expense, have upon their table most of what sea, air, or earth can afford. I intended to have written about Raarsa, but the post will not wait longer than while I send my compliments to my dear master and little mistresses. I am, &c.

XXII.—To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, Sept. 21, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,—I am so vexed at the necessity of sending yesterday so short a letter, that I purpose to get a long letter beforehand, by writing something every day, which I may the more easily do, as a cold makes me now too deaf to take the usual pleasure in conversation. Lady Macleod is very good to me; and the place, at which we now are, is equal, in strength of situation, in the wildness of the adjacent country, and in the plenty and elegance of the domestick entertainment, to a castle in Gothick romances. The sea, with a little island, is before us; cascades play within view. Close to the house is the formidable skeleton of an old castle, probably Danish; and the whole mass of building stands upon a protuberance of rock, inaccessible till of late, but by a pair of stairs on the seaside, and secure, in ancient times, against any enemy that was likely to invade the kingdom of Skie.

Macleod has offered me an island; if it were not too far off, I should hardly refuse it: my island would be pleasanter than Brighthelmstone, if you and my master could come to it; but I cannot think it pleasant to live quite alone,

"Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis."

That I should be elated, by the dominion of an island to forgetfulness of my friends at Streatham, I cannot believe, and I hope never to deserve that they should be willing to forget me.

It has happened, that I have been often recognised in my journey, where I did not expect it. At Aberdeen, I found one of my acquaintance professor of physick: turning aside to dine with a country-gentleman, I was owned, at table, by one who had seen me at a philosophical lecture: at Macdonald's I was claimed by a naturalist, who wanders about the islands to pick up curiosities: and I had once, in London, attracted the notice of lady Macleod. I will now go on with my account.

The highland girl made tea, and looked and talked not inelegantly; her father was by no means an ignorant or a weak man; there were books in the cottage, among which were some volumes of Prideaux's Connexion: 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. He was going to America, because his rent was raised beyond what he thought himself able to pay.

At night our beds were made, but we had some difficulty in persuading ourselves to lie down in them, though we had put on our own sheets; at last we ventured, and I slept very soundly in the vale of Glenmorrison, amidst the rocks and mountains. Next morning our landlord liked us so well, that he walked some miles with us for our company, through a country so wild and barren, that the proprietor does not, with all his pressure upon his tenants, raise more than four hundred pounds a year for near one hundred square miles, or sixty thousand acres. He let us know, that he had forty head of black cattle, a hundred goats, and a hundred sheep, upon a farm that he remembered let at five pounds a year, but for which he now paid twenty. He told us some stories of their march into England. At last, he left us, and we went forward, winding among mountains, sometimes green and sometimes naked, commonly so steep, as not easily to be climbed by the greatest vigour and activity: our way was often crossed by little rivulets, and we were entertained with small streams trickling from the rocks, which, after heavy rains, must be tremendous torrents.

About noon we came to a small glen, so they call a valley, which, compared with other places, appeared rich and fertile; here our guides desired us to stop, that the horses might graze, for the journey was very laborious, and no more grass would be found. We made no difficulty of compliance, and 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; if my mistress, and master, and Queeney had been there, we should have produced some reflections among us, either poetical or philosophical; for though "solitude be the nurse of woe," conversation is often the parent of remarks and discoveries.

In about an hour we remounted, and pursued our journey. The lake, by which we had travelled for some time, ended in a river, which we passed by a bridge, and came to another glen, with a collection of huts, called Auknashealds; the huts were, generally, built of clods of earth, held together by the intertexture of vegetable fibres, of which earth there are great levels in Scotland, which they call mosses. Moss in Scotland is bog in Ireland, and moss-trooper is bog-trotter; there was, however, one hut built of loose stones, piled up, with great thickness, into a strong, though not solid wall. From this house we obtained some great pails of milk, and having brought bread with us, we were liberally regaled. The inhabitants, a very coarse tribe, ignorant of any language but Erse, gathered so fast about us, that, if we had not had highlanders with us, they might have caused more alarm than pleasure; they are called the clan of Macrae.

We had been told, that nothing gratified the highlanders so much as snuff and tobacco, and had, accordingly, stored ourselves with both at Fort Augustus. Boswell opened his treasure, and gave them each a piece of tobacco roll. We had more bread than we could eat for the present, and were more liberal than provident. Boswell cut it in slices, and gave them an opportunity of tasting wheaten bread, for the first time. I then got some half-pence for a shilling, and made up the deficiencies of Boswell's distribution, who had given some money among the children. We then directed, that the mistress of the stone-house should be asked, what we must pay her. She, who, perhaps, had never before sold any thing but cattle, knew not, I believe, well what to ask, and referred herself to us: we obliged her to make some demand, and one of the Highlanders settled the account with her at a shilling. 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. The Macraes were so well pleased with our behaviour, that they declared it the best day they had seen, since the time of the old laird of Macleod, who, I suppose, like us, stopped in their valley, as he was travelling to Skie.

We were mentioning this view of the highlander's life at Macdonald's, and mentioning the Macraes, with some degree of pity, when a highland lady informed us, that we might spare our tenderness, for she doubted not but the woman, who supplied us with milk, was mistress of thirteen or fourteen milch cows.

I cannot forbear to interrupt my narrative. 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. I can now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life, diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent, or importunate distress. But, perhaps, I am better than I should have been, if I had been less afflicted. With this I will try to be content.

In proportion as there is less pleasure in retrospective considerations, the mind is more disposed to wander forward into futurity; but, at sixty-four, what promises, however liberal, of imaginary good can futurity venture to make? yet something will be always promised, and some promises will be always credited. I am hoping, and I am praying, that I may live better in the time to come, whether long or short, than I have yet lived, and, in the solace of that hope, endeavour to repose. Dear Queeney's day is next: I hope she, at sixty-four, will have less to regret.

I will now complain no more, but tell my mistress of my travels.

After we left the Macraes, we travelled on through a country like that which we passed in the morning. The highlands are very uniform, for there is little variety in universal barrenness; the rocks, however, are not all naked, for some have grass on their sides, and birches and alders on their tops, and in the valleys are often broad and clear streams, which have little depth, and commonly run very quick; the channels are made by the violence of the wintry floods; the quickness of the stream is in proportion to the declivity of the descent, and the breadth of the channel makes the water shallow in a dry season.

There are red deer and roe bucks in the mountains, but we found only goats in the road, and had very little entertainment, as we travelled, either for the eye or ear. There are, I fancy, no singing birds in the highlands.

Towards night we came to a very formidable hill, called Rattiken, which we climbed with more difficulty than we had yet experienced, and, at last, came to Glanelg, a place on the seaside, opposite to Skie. We were, by this time, weary and disgusted, nor was our humour much mended by our inn, which, though it was built of lime and slate, the highlander's description of a house, which he thinks magnificent, had neither wine, bread, eggs, nor any thing that we could eat or drink. 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. At last, a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who heard of our arrival, sent us rum and white sugar. Boswell was now provided for, in part, and the landlord prepared some mutton chops, which we could not eat, and killed two hens, of which Boswell made his servant broil a limb; with what effect I know not. We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with my supper. When the repast was ended, we began to deliberate upon bed: Mrs. Boswell had warned us, that we should catch something, and had given us sheets, for our security, for—and—, she said, came back from Skie, so scratching themselves. I thought sheets a slender defence against the confederacy with which we were threatened, and, by this time, our Highlanders had found a place, where they could get some hay: I ordered hay to be laid thick upon the bed, and slept upon it in my great coat: Boswell laid sheets upon his bed, and reposed in linen, like a gentleman. The horses were turned out to grass, with a man to watch them. The hill Rattiken, and the inn at Glanelg, were the only things of which we, or travellers yet more delicate, could find any pretensions to complain.

Sept. 2nd. I rose, rustling from the hay, and went to tea, which I forget, whether we found or brought. We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast. A boat was procured, and we lanched 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, but he did not succeed equally in escaping reproach. He had no cook, nor, I suppose, much provision, nor had the lady the common decencies of her tea-table; we picked up our sugar with our fingers. Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony; I did not much reflect upon the conduct of a man with whom I was not likely to converse as long at any other time.

You will now expect that I should give you some account of the isle of Skie, of which, though I have been twelve days upon it, I have little to say. It is an island, perhaps, fifty miles long, so much indented by inlets of the sea, that there is no part of it removed from the water more than six miles. No part, that I have seen, is plain; you are always climbing or descending, and every step is upon rock or mire. A walk upon ploughed ground in England is a dance upon carpets, compared to the toilsome drudgery of wandering in Skie. There is neither town nor village in the island, nor have I seen any house but Macleod's, that is not much below your habitation at Brighthelmstone. In the mountains there are stags and roe bucks, but no hares, and few rabbits; nor have I seen any thing that interested me, as a zoologist, except an otter, bigger than I thought an otter could have been.

You are, perhaps, imagining that I am withdrawing from the gay and the busy world, into regions of peace and pastoral felicity, and am enjoying the relicks of the golden age; that I am surveying nature's magnificence from a mountain, or remarking her minuter beauties on the flowery bank of a winding rivulet; that I am invigorating myself in the sunshine, or delighting my imagination with being hidden from the invasion of human evils and human passions, in the darkness of a thicket; that I am busy in gathering shells and pebbles on the shore, or contemplative on a rock, from which I look upon the water, and consider how many waves are rolling between me and Streatham.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. Here are mountains which I should once have climbed; but to climb steeps is now very laborious, and to descend them, dangerous; and I am now content with knowing, that, by scrambling up a rock, I shall only see other rocks, and a wider circuit of barren desolation. Of streams, we have here a sufficient number; but they murmur not upon pebbles, but upon rocks. Of flowers, if Chloris herself were here, I could present her only with the bloom of heath. Of lawns and thickets, he must read that would know them, for here is little sun, and no shade. On the sea I look from my window, but am not much tempted to the shore; for since I came to this island, almost every breath of air has been a storm, and, what is worse, a storm with all its severity, but without its magnificence, for the sea is here so broken into channels, that there is not a sufficient volume of water either for lofty surges, or a loud roar.

On Sept. 6th, we left—to visit Raarsa, the island which I have already mentioned. We were to cross part of Skie on horseback; a mode of travelling very uncomfortable, for the road is so narrow, where any road can be found, that only one can go, and so craggy, that the attention can never be remitted; it allows, therefore, neither the gaiety of conversation, nor the laxity of solitude; nor has it, in itself, the amusement of much variety, as it affords only all the possible transpositions of bog, rock, and rivulet. Twelve miles, by computation, make a reasonable journey for a day.

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. There were books, both English and Latin. Company gathered about us, and we heard some talk of the second sight, and some talk of the events of forty-five; a year which will not soon be forgotten among the islanders. The next day we were confined by a storm. The company, I think, increased, and our entertainment was not only hospitable, but elegant. At night, a minister's sister, in very fine brocade, sung Erse songs; I wished to know the meaning; but the highlanders are not much used to scholastick questions, and no translations could be obtained.

Next day, Sept. 8th, the weather allowed us to depart; a good boat was provided us, and we went to Raarsa, under the conduct of Mr. Malcolm Macleod, a gentleman who conducted prince Charles through the mountains in his distresses. The prince, he says, was more active than himself; they were, at least, one night without any shelter.

The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancing agitation, and, in about three or four hours, we arrived at Raarsa, where we were met by the laird, and his friends, upon the shore. Raarsa, for such is his title, is master of two islands; upon the smaller of which, called Rona, he has only flocks and herds. Rona gives title to his eldest son. The money which he raises annually by rent from all his dominions, which contain, at least, fifty thousand acres, is not believed to exceed two hundred and fifty pounds; but, as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sells, every year, great numbers of cattle, which add to his revenue, and his table is furnished from the farm and from the sea, with very little expense, except for those things this country does not produce, and of those he is very liberal. The wine circulates vigorously; and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always at hand. I am, &c.

We are this morning trying to get out of Skie.

XXIII.—To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, Sept. 24, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,—I am still in Skie. Do you remember the song,

"Every island is a prison, Strongly guarded by the sea."

We have, at one time, no boat, and, at another, may have too much wind; but, of our reception here, we have no reason to complain. We are now with colonel Macleod, in a more pleasant place than I thought Skie could afford. Now to the narrative.

We were received at Raarsa on the seaside, and after clambering, with some difficulty, over the rocks, a labour which the traveller, wherever he reposes himself on land, must, in these islands, be contented to endure; we were introduced into the house, which one of the company called the court of Raarsa, with politeness, which not the court of Versailles could have thought defective. The house is not large, though we were told, in our passage, that it had eleven fine rooms, nor magnificently furnished; but our utensils were, most commonly, silver. We went up into a dining-room, about as large as your blue room, where we had something given us to eat, and tea and coffee.

Raarsa himself is a man of no inelegant appearance, and of manners uncommonly refined. Lady Raarsa makes no very sublime appearance for a sovereign, but is a good housewife, and a very prudent and diligent conductress of her family. Miss Flora Macleod 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. The rest of the nine girls are all pretty; the youngest is between Queeney and Lucy. The youngest boy, of four years old, runs barefoot, and wandered with us over the rocks to see a mill: I believe he would walk on that rough ground, without shoes, ten miles in a day.

The laird of Raarsa has sometimes disputed the chieftainry of the clan with Macleod of Skie, but, being much inferiour in extent of possessions, has, I suppose, been forced to desist. Raarsa, and its provinces, have descended to its present possessour, through a succession of four hundred years, without any increase or diminution. It was, indeed, lately in danger of forfeiture, but the old laird joined some prudence with his zeal, and when prince Charles landed in Scotland, made over his estate to this son, the present laird, and led one hundred men of Raarsa into the field, with officers of his own family. Eighty-six only came back after the last battle. The prince was hidden, in his distress, two nights at Raarsa, 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. At night, unexpectedly to us, who were strangers, the carpet was taken up; the fiddler of the family came up, and a very vigorous and general dance was begun. As I told you, we were two and thirty at supper; there were full as many dancers; for, though all who supped did not dance, some danced of the young people who did not sup. Raarsa himself danced with his children, and old Malcolm, in his fillibeg, was as nimble, as when he led the prince over the mountains. When they had danced themselves weary, two tables were spread, and, I suppose, at least twenty dishes were upon them. In this country, some preparations of milk are always served up at supper, and sometimes, in the place of tarts, at dinner. The table was not coarsely heaped, but, at once, plentiful and elegant. They do not pretend to make a loaf; there are only cakes, commonly of oats or barley, but they made me very nice cakes of wheat flour. I always sat at the left hand of lady Raarsa; and young Macleod of Skie, the chieftain of the clan, sat on the right.

After supper, a young lady, who was visiting, sung Erse songs, in which lady Raarsa joined, prettily enough, but not gracefully; the young ladies sustained the chorus better. They are very little used to be asked questions, and not well prepared with answers. When one of the songs was over, I asked the princess, that sat next to me, "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.

At twelve it was bed-time. I had a chamber to myself, which, in eleven rooms to forty people, was more than my share. How the company and the family were distributed, is not easy to tell. Macleod, the chieftain, and Boswell, and I, had all single chambers, on the first floor. There remained eight rooms only, for, at least, seven and thirty lodgers. I suppose they put up temporary beds in the dining-room, where they stowed all the young ladies. There was a room above stairs with six beds, in which they put ten men. The rest in my next.

XXIV.—To MRS. THRALE.

Ostich in Skie, Sept. 30, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,—I am still confined in Skie. We were unskilful travellers, and imagined that the sea was an open road, which we could pass at pleasure; but we have now learned, with some pain, that we may still wait, for a long time, the caprices of the equinoctial winds, and sit reading or writing, as I now do, while the tempest is rolling the sea, or roaring in the mountains. 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, or that I might be of use while I am away. But these thoughts are vain; the wind is violent and adverse, and our boat cannot yet come. I must content myself with writing to you, and hoping that you will sometime receive my letter. Now to my narrative.

Sept. 9th. Having passed the night as is usual, I rose, and found the dining-room full of company; we feasted and talked, and when the evening came it brought musick and dancing. Young Macleod, the great proprietor of Skie, and head of his clan, was very distinguishable; a young man of nineteen, bred awhile at St. Andrew's, and afterwards at Oxford, a pupil of G. Strahan. He is a young man of a mind, as much advanced as I have ever known; very elegant of manners, and very graceful in his person. He has the full spirit of a feudal chief; and I was very ready to accept his invitation to Dunvegan. All Raarsa's children are beautiful. The ladies, all, except the eldest, are in the morning dressed in their hair. The true highlander never wears more than a riband on her head, till she is married.

On the third day Boswell went out, with old Malcolm, to see a ruined castle, which he found less entire than was promised, but he saw the country. I did not go, for the castle was, perhaps, ten miles off, and there is no riding at Raarsa, the whole island being rock or mountain, from which the cattle often fall, and are destroyed. It is very barren, and maintains, as near as I could collect, about seven hundred inhabitants, perhaps ten to a square mile. In these countries you are not to suppose that you shall find villages or inclosures. The traveller wanders through a naked desert, gratified sometimes, but rarely, with the sight of cows, and now and then finds a heap of loose stones and turf, in a cavity between rocks, where a being, born with all those powers which education expands, and all those sensations which culture refines, is condemned to shelter itself from the wind and rain. Philosophers there are, who try to make themselves believe, that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind; he whom want of words or images sunk into silence still thought, as he thought before, that privation of pleasure can never please, and that content is not to be much envied, when it has no other principle than ignorance of good.

This gloomy tranquillity, which some may call fortitude, and others, wisdom, was, I believe, for a long time, to be very frequently found in these dens of poverty; every man was content to live like his neighbours, and, never wandering from home, saw no mode of life preferable to his own, except at the house of the laird, or the laird's nearest relations, whom he considered as a superiour order of beings, to whose luxuries or honours he had no pretensions. But the end of this reverence and submission seems now approaching; the highlanders have learned, that there are countries less bleak and barren than their own, where, instead of working for the laird, every man will till his own ground, and eat the produce of his own labour. Great numbers have been induced, by this discovery, to go, every year, for some time past, to America. Macdonald and Macleod, of Skie, have lost many tenants and many labourers; but Raarsa has not yet been forsaken by a single inhabitant.

Rona is yet more rocky and barren than Raarsa, and, though it contains, perhaps, four thousand acres, is possessed only by a herd of cattle and the keepers.

I find myself not very able to walk upon the mountains, but one day I went out to see the walls, yet standing, of an ancient chapel. In almost every island the superstitious votaries of the Romish church erected places of worship, in which the drones of convents, or cathedrals, performed the holy offices; but, by the active zeal of protestant devotion, almost all of them have sunk into ruin. The chapel at Raarsa is now only considered as the burying-place of the family, and, I suppose, of the whole island.

We would now have gone away, and left room for others to enjoy the pleasures of this little court; but the wind detained us till the 12th, when, though it was Sunday, we thought it proper to snatch the opportunity of a calm day. Raarsa 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. Thus we left Raarsa; the seat of plenty, civility, and cheerfulness.

We dined at a publick house at Port Re; so called, because one of the Scottish kings landed there, in a progress through the western isles. Raarsa paid the reckoning privately. We then got on horseback, and, by a short, but very tedious journey, came to Kingsburgh, at which the same king lodged, after he landed. Here I had the honour of saluting the far-famed Miss Flora Macdonald, who conducted the prince, dressed as her maid, through the English forces, from the island of Lewes; and, when she came to Skie, dined with the English officers, and left her maid below. She must then have been a very young lady; she is now not old; 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. "If thou likest her opinions, thou wilt praise her virtue." She was carried to London, but dismissed without a trial, and came down with Malcolm Macleod, against whom sufficient evidence could not be procured. She and her husband are poor, and are going to try their fortune in America:

"Sic rerum volvitur orbis."

At Kingsburgh we were very liberally feasted, and I slept in the bed in which the prince reposed in his distress; the sheets which he used were never put to any meaner offices, but were wrapped up by the lady of the house, and at last, according to her desire, were laid round her in her grave. These are not whigs.

On the 13th, travelling partly on horseback, where we could not row, and partly on foot, where we could not ride, we came to Dunvegan, which I have described already. 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 Skie, larger, I suppose, than some English counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and, of his islands 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 mountains, 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 eighty thousand acres, rented at six hundred pounds a year.

While we were at Dunvegan, the wind was high, and the rain violent, so that we were not able to put forth a boat to fish in the sea, or to visit the adjacent islands, which may be seen from the house; but we filled up the time, as we could, sometimes by talk, sometimes by reading. I have never wanted books in the isle of Skie.

We were invited one day by the laird and lady of Muck, one of the western islands, two miles long, and three quarters of a mile high. He has half his island in his own culture, and upon the other half live one hundred and fifty dependants, who not only live upon the product, but export corn sufficient for the payment of their rent.

Lady Macleod has a son and four daughters; they have lived long in England, and have the language and manners of English ladies. We lived with them very easily. The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated, at every house, as if we came to confer a benefit.

We were eight days at Dunvegan, but we took the first opportunity which the weather afforded, after the first days, of going away, and, on the 21st, went to Ulinish, where we were well entertained, and wandered a little after curiosities. 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. We came to the cave, and, clambering up the rocks, came to an arch, open at one end, one hundred and eighty feet long, thirty broad, in the broadest part, and about thirty high. There was no echo: such is the fidelity of report; but I saw, what I had never seen before, muscles and whilks, in their natural state. There was another arch in the rock, open at both ends.

September 23rd. We removed to Talisker, a house occupied by Mr. Macleod, a lieutenant colonel in the Dutch service. Talisker has been long in the possession of gentlemen, and, therefore, has a garden well cultivated, and, what is here very rare, is shaded by trees; a place where the imagination is more amused cannot easily be found. The mountains about it are of great height, with waterfalls succeeding one another so fast, that as one ceases to be heard, another begins. Between the mountains there is a small valley, extending to the sea, which is not far off, beating upon a coast, very difficult of access.

Two nights before our arrival, two boats were driven upon this coast by the tempest; one of them had a pilot that knew the passage; the second followed, but a third missed the true course, and was driven forward, with great danger of being forced into the vast ocean, but, however, gained, at last, some other island. The crews crept to Talisker, almost lifeless with wet, cold, fatigue, and terrour, but the lady took care of them. She is a woman of more than common qualifications; having travelled with her husband, she speaks four languages.

You find, that all the islanders, even in these recesses of life, are not barbarous. One of the ministers, who has adhered to us almost all the time, is an excellent scholar. We have now with us the young laird of Col, who is heir, perhaps, to two hundred square miles of land. He has first studied at Aberdeen, and afterwards gone to Hertfordshire, to learn agriculture, being much impressed with desire of improvement; he, likewise, has the notions of a chief, and keeps a piper. At Macleod's the bagpipe always played, while we were dining.

Col has undertaken, by permission of the waves and wind, to carry us about several of the islands, with which he is acquainted enough to show us whatever curious is given by nature, or left by antiquity; but we grew afraid of deviating from our way home, lest we should be shut up for months upon some little protuberance of rock, that just appears above the sea, and, perhaps, is scarcely marked upon a map.

You remember the doge of Genoa, who being asked, what struck him most at the French court, answered, "myself." I cannot think many things here more likely to affect the fancy, than to see Johnson ending his sixty-fourth year in the wilderness of the Hebrides. But now I am here, it will gratify me very little to return without seeing, or doing my best to see, what those places afford. I have a desire to instruct myself in the whole system of pastoral life, but I know not whether I shall be able to perfect the idea. However, I have many pictures in my mind, which I could not have had without this journey, and should have passed it with great pleasure, had you, and master, and Queeney, been in the party. We should have excited the attention, and enlarged the observation of each other, and obtained many pleasing topicks of future conversation. As it is, I travel with my mind too much at home, and, perhaps, miss many things worthy of observation, or pass them with transient notice; so that the images, for want of that reimpression which discussion and comparison produce, easily fade away; but I keep a book of remarks, and Boswell writes a regular journal of our travels, which, I think, contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other occurrences together; "for such a faithful chronicler as Griffith."

I hope, dearest madam, you are equally careful to reposit proper memorials of all that happens to you and your family, and then, when we meet, we shall tell our stories. I wish you had gone this summer, in your usual splendour, to Brighthelmstone.

Mr. Thrale probably wonders, how I live all this time without sending to him for money. Travelling in Scotland is dear enough, dearer, in proportion to what the country affords, than in England, but residence in the isles is unexpensive. Company is, I think, considered as a supply of pleasure, and a relief of that tediousness of life which is felt in every place, elegant or rude. 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. Their punch is made without lemons, or any substitute.

Their tables are very plentiful; but a very nice man would not be pampered. As they have no meat but as they kill it, they are obliged to live, while it lasts, upon the same flesh. They kill a sheep, and set mutton boiled and roast on the table together. They have fish, both of the sea and of the brooks; but they can hardly conceive that it requires any sauce. To sauce, in general, they are strangers: now and then butter is melted, but I dare not always take, lest I should offend by disliking it. Barley broth is a constant dish, and is made well in every house. A stranger, if he is prudent, will secure his share, for it is not certain that he will be able to eat any thing else.

Their meat, being often newly killed, is very tough, and, as nothing is sufficiently subdued by the fire, is not easily to be eaten. Carving is here a very laborious employment, for the knives are never whetted. Table knives are not of long subsistence in the highlands: every man, while arms were a regular part of dress, had his knife and fork appendant to his dirk. Knives they now lay upon the table, but the handles are apt to show that they have been in other hands, and the blades have neither brightness nor edge.

Of silver, there is no want, and it will last long, for it is never cleaned. They are a nation just rising from barbarity: long contented with necessaries, now somewhat studious of convenience, but not yet arrived at delicate discriminations. Their linen is, however, both clean and fine. Bread, such as we mean by that name, I have never seen in the isle of Skie. They have ovens, for they bake their pies; but they never ferment their meal, nor mould a loaf. Cakes of oats and barley are brought to the table, but I believe wheat is reserved for strangers. They are commonly too hard for me, and, therefore, I take potatoes to my meat, and am sure to find them on almost every table.

They retain so much of the pastoral life, that some preparation of milk is commonly one of the dishes, both at dinner and supper. Tea is always drunk at the usual times; but, in the morning, the table is polluted with a plate of slices of strong cheese. This is peculiar to the highlands; at Edinburgh there are always honey and sweetmeats on the morning tea-table.

Strong liquors they seem to love. Every man, perhaps, woman, begins the day with a dram; and the punch is made both at dinner and supper.

They have neither wood nor coal for fuel, but burn peat or turf in their chimneys. It is dug out of the moors or mosses, and makes a strong and lasting fire, not always very sweet, and somewhat apt to smoke the pot.

The houses of inferiour gentlemen are very small, and every room serves many purposes. In the bed-rooms, perhaps, are laid up stores of different kinds; and the parlour of the day is a bed-room at night. In the room which I inhabited last, about fourteen feet square, there were three chests of drawers, a long chest for larger clothes, two closet-cupboards, and the bed. Their rooms are commonly dirty, of which they seem to have little sensibility, and if they had more, clean floors would be difficultly kept, where the first step from the door is into the dirt. They are very much inclined to carpets, and seldom fail to lay down something under their feet, better or worse, as they happen to be furnished.

The highland dress, being forbidden by law, is very little used; sometimes it may be seen, but the English traveller is struck with nothing so much as the nudite des pieds of the common people.

Skie is the greatest island, or the greatest but one, among the Hebrides. Of the soil, I have already given some account: it is generally barren, but some spots are not wholly unfruitful. The gardens have apples and pears, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, and gooseberries, but all the fruit, that I have seen, is small. They attempt to sow nothing but oats and barley. Oats constitute the bread-corn of the place. Their harvest is about the beginning of October; and, being so late, is very much subject to disappointments from the rains that follow the equinox. This year has been particularly disastrous. Their rainy season lasts from autumn to spring. They have seldom very hard frosts; nor was it ever known that a lake was covered with ice strong enough to bear a skater. The sea round them is always open. The snow falls, but soon melts; only in 1771, they had a cold spring, in which the island was so long covered with it, that many beasts, both wild and domestick, perished, and the whole country was reduced to distress, from which I know not if it is even yet recovered.

The animals here are not remarkably small; perhaps they recruit their breed from the mainland. The cows are sometimes without horns. The horned and unhorned cattle are not accidental variations, but different species: they will, however, breed together.

October 3rd. The wind is now changed, and if we snatch the moment of opportunity, an escape from this island is become practicable; I have no reason to complain of my reception, yet I long to be again at home.

You and my master may, perhaps, expect, after this description of Skie, some account of myself. My eye is, I am afraid, not fully recovered; my ears are not mended; my nerves seem to grow weaker, and I have been otherwise not as well as I sometimes am, but think myself, lately, better. This climate, perhaps, is not within my degree of healthy latitude.

Thus I have given my most honoured mistress the story of me and my little ramble. We are now going to some other isle, to what we know not; the wind will tell us. I am, &c.

XXV.—To MRS. THRALE.

Mull, Oct. 15, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,—Though I have written to Mr. Thrale, yet having a little more time than was promised me, I would not suffer the messenger to go without some token of my duty to my mistress, who, I suppose, expects the usual tribute of intelligence, a tribute which I am not very able to pay.

October 3rd. After having been detained, by storms, many days in Skie, we left it, as we thought, with a fair wind; but a violent gust, which Bos. had a great mind to call a tempest, forced us into Col, an obscure island; on which

—"nulla campis Arbor aestiva recreatur aura."

There is literally no tree upon the island, part of it is a sandy waste, over which it would be really dangerous to travel in dry weather, and with a high wind. It seems to be little more than one continued rock, covered, from space to space, with a thin layer of earth. It is, however, according to the highland notion, very populous, and life is improved beyond the manners of Skie; for the huts are collected into little villages, and every one has a small garden of roots and cabbage. The laird has a new house built by his uncle, and an old castle inhabited by his ancestors. The young laird entertained us very liberally; he is heir, perhaps, to three hundred square miles of land, which, at ten shillings an acre, would bring him ninety-six thousand pounds a year. He is desirous of improving the agriculture of his country; and, in imitation of the czar, travelled for improvement, and worked, with his own hands, upon a farm in Hertfordshire, in the neighbourhood of your uncle, sir Thomas Salusbury. He talks of doing useful things, and has introduced turnips for winter fodder. He has made a small essay towards a road.

Col is but a barren place. Description has here few opportunities of spreading her colours. The difference of day and night is the only vicissitude. The succession of sunshine to rain, or of calms to tempests, we have not known; wind and rain have been our only weather.

At last, after about nine days, we hired a sloop; and having lain in it all night, with such accommodations as these miserable vessels can afford, were landed yesterday on the isle of Mull; from which we expect an easy passage into Scotland. I am sick in a ship, but recover by lying down.

I have not good health; I do not find that travelling much helps me. My nights are flatulent, though not in the utmost degree, and I have a weakness in my knees, which makes me very unable to walk. Pray, dear madam, let me have a long letter. I am, &c.

XXVI.—To MRS. THRALE.

Inverary, Oct. 24, 1773.

HONOURED MISTRESS,—My last letters to you, and my dear master, were written from Mull, the third island of the Hebrides in extent. There is no post, and I took the opportunity of a gentleman's passage to the mainland.

In Mull we were confined two days by the weather; on the third we got on horseback, and, after a journey, difficult and tedious, over rocks naked, and valleys untracked, through a country of barrenness and solitude, we came, almost in the dark, to the seaside, weary and dejected, having met with nothing but water falling from the mountains that could raise any image of delight. Our company was the young laird of Col, and his servant. Col made every Maclean open his house, where he came, and supply us with horses, when we departed; but the horses of this country are small, and I was not mounted to my wish.

At the seaside we found the ferryboat departed; if it had been where it was expected, the wind was against us, and the hour was late, nor was it very desirable to cross the sea, in darkness, with a small boat. The captain of a sloop, that had been driven thither by the storms, saw our distress, and, as we were hesitating and deliberating, sent his boat, which, by Col's order, transported us to the isle of Ulva. We were introduced to Mr. Macquarry, the head of a small clan, whose ancestors have reigned in Ulva beyond memory, but who has reduced himself, by his negligence and folly, to the necessity of selling this venerable patrimony.

On the next morning we passed the strait to Inch Kenneth, an island about a mile in length, and less than half a mile broad; in which Kenneth, a Scottish saint, established a small clerical college, of which the chapel walls are still standing. At this place I beheld a scene, which I wish you, and my master, and Queeney had partaken.

The only family on the island is that of sir Allan, the chief of the ancient and numerous clan of Maclean; the clan which claims the second place, yielding only to Macdonald in the line of battle. Sir Allan, a chieftain, a baronet, and a soldier, inhabits, in this insulated desert, a thatched hut, with no chambers. Young Col, who owns him as his chief, and whose cousin was his lady, had, I believe, given him some notice of our visit; he received us with the soldier's frankness, and the gentleman's elegance, and introduced us to his daughters, two young ladies, who have not wanted education suitable to their birth, and who, in their cottage, neither forgot their dignity, nor affected to remember it. Do not you wish to have been with us?

Sir Allan's affairs are in disorder, by the fault of his ancestors: and, while he forms some scheme for retrieving them, he has retreated hither.

When our salutations were over, he showed us the island. We walked, uncovered, into the chapel, and saw, in the reverend ruin, the effects of precipitate reformation. The floor is covered with ancient grave-stones, of which the inscriptions are not now legible; and without, some of the chief families still continue the right of sepulture. The altar is not yet quite demolished; beside it, on the right side, is a bass-relief of the virgin with her child, and an angel hovering over her. On the other side still stands a hand-bell, which, though it has no clapper, neither presbyterian bigotry, nor barbarian wantonness, has yet taken away. The chapel is thirty-eight feet long, and eighteen broad. Boswell, who is very pious, went into it at night, to perform his devotions, but came back, in haste, for fear of spectres. Near the chapel is a fountain, to which the water, remarkably pure, is conveyed from a distant hill, through pipes laid by the Romish clergy, which still perform the office of conveyance, though they have never been repaired, since popery was suppressed.

We soon after went in to dinner, and wanted neither the comforts nor the elegancies of life. There were several dishes, and variety of liquors. The servants live in another cottage; in which, I suppose, the meat is dressed.

Towards evening, sir Allan told us, that Sunday never passed over him, like another day. One of the ladies read, and read very well, the evening service;—and paradise was opened in the wild.

Next day, 18th, we went and wandered among the rocks on the shore, while the boat was busy in catching oysters, of which there is a great bed. Oysters lie upon the sand, one, I think, sticking to another, and cockles are found a few inches under the sand.

We then went in the boat to Sondiland, a little island very near. We found it a wild rock, of about ten acres; part naked, part covered with sand, out of which we picked shells; and part clothed with a thin layer of mould, on the grass of which a few sheep are sometimes fed. We then came back and dined. I passed part of the afternoon in reading, and in the evening one of the ladies played on her harpsichord, and Boswell and Col danced a reel with the other.

On the 19th, we persuaded sir Allan to lanch his boat again, and go with us to Icolmkill, where the first great preacher of Christianity to the Scots built a church, and settled a monastery. In our way we stopped to examine a very uncommon cave on the coast of Mull. We had some difficulty to make our way over the vast masses of broken rocks that lie before the entrance, and at the mouth were embarrassed with stones, which the sea had accumulated, as at Brighthelmstone; but, as we advanced, we reached a floor of soft sand, and, as we left the light behind us, walked along a very spacious cavity, vaulted over head with an arch almost regular, by which a mountain was sustained, at least a very lofty rock. From this magnificent cavern, went a narrow passage to the right hand, which we entered with a candle; and though it was obstructed with great stones, clambered over them to a second expansion of the cave, in which there lies a great square stone, which might serve as a table. The air here was very warm, but not oppressive, and the flame of the candle continued pyramidal. The cave goes onward to an unknown extent, but we were now one hundred and sixty yards under ground; we had but one candle, and had never heard of any that went farther and came back; we, therefore, thought it prudent to return.

Going forward in our boat, we came to a cluster of rocks, black and horrid, which sir Allan chose for the place where he would eat his dinner. We climbed till we got seats. The stores were opened, and the repast taken.

We then entered the boat again; the night came upon us; the wind rose; the sea swelled; and Boswell desired to be set on dry ground: we, however, pursued our navigation, and passed by several little islands in the silent solemnity of faint moonshine, seeing little, and hearing only the wind and the water. At last, we reached the island, the venerable seat of ancient sanctity; where secret piety reposed, and where falling greatness was reposited. The island has no house of entertainment, and we manfully made our bed in a farmer's barn. The description I hope to give you another time. I am, &c.

XXVII.—To MRS. THRALE.

Edinburgh, Nov. 12, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,—Among the possibilities of evil, which my imagination suggested at this distance, I missed that which has really happened. I never had much hope of a will in your favour, but was willing to believe that no will would have been made. The event is now irrevocable; it remains only to bear it. Not to wish it had been different, is impossible; but as the wish is painful without use, it is not prudent, perhaps, not lawful, to indulge it. As life, and vigour of mind, and sprightliness of imagination, and flexibility of attention, are given us for valuable and useful purposes, we must not think ourselves at liberty to squander life, to enervate intellectual strength, to cloud our thoughts, or fix our attention, when, by all this expense, we know that no good can be produced. Be alone as little as you can; when you are alone, do not suffer your thoughts to dwell on what you might have done, to prevent this disappointment. You, perhaps, could not have done what you imagine, or might have done it without effect. But even to think in the most reasonable manner, is, for the present, not so useful, as not to think. Remit yourself solemnly into the hands of God, and then turn your mind upon the business and amusements which lie before you. "All is best," says Chene, "as it has been, excepting the errours of our own free will." Burton concludes his long book upon Melancholy, with this important precept: "Be not solitary; be not idle." Remember Chene's position, and observe Burton's precept.