J. LOCK, A.M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon. BOSWELL.

[295] See ante, ii. 126, 298.

[296] 'One of its ornaments [i.e. of Marischal College] is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin Poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.' Johnson's Works, ix. 12. Pope attacking Benson, who endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments to Milton, and printing editions of Johnson's version of the Psalms, introduces the Scotch Poet in the Dunciad:— On two unequal crutches propped he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.' Dunciad, bk. iv. l. III. Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy of Johnston's Poems (ante, iii. 104) and for his likeness (ante, March 18, 1784).

[297] 'Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April' [five months, instead of seven]. Piozzi Letters, i. 116. In his Works (ix. 14) Johnson by mistake gives eight months to the St. Andrews session. On p. 5 he gives it rightly as seven.

[298] Beattie, as an Aberdeen professor, was grieved at this saying when he read the book. 'Why is it recorded?' he asked. 'For no reason that I can imagine, unless it be in order to return evil for good.' Forbes's Beattie, ed. 1824. p. 337.

[299] See ante, ii. 336, and iii. 209.

[300] See ante, iii. 65, and post, Nov. 2.

[301] See ante, i. 411. Johnson, no doubt, was reminded of this story by his desire to get this book. Later on (ante, iii. 104) he asked Boswell 'to be vigilant and get him Graham's Telemachus.'

[302] I am sure I have related this story exactly as Dr. Johnson told it to me; but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At last, Sir, Graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking to another, said Doctor, &c.' 'What effect (Dr. Johnson used to add) this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be easily conceived.' BOSWELL.

[303] Graham was of Eton College.

[304] It was to Johnson that the invitation was due. 'What I was at the English Church at Aberdeen I happened to be espied by Lady Dr. 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.' Piozzi Letters, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the compliment was paid.

[305] 'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.' Ante, April 28, 1783. Smollett (History of England, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 185) says:—'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns (sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the slow fever of which he died.' Mr. Seward records (Anec. ii. 395):—'Mr. Cummins, the celebrated American Quaker, said of Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham):—"The first time I come to Mr. Pitt upon any business I find him extremely ignorant; the second time I come to him, I find him completely informed upon it."'

[306] See ante, i. 232.

[307] See ante, i. 46.

[308] 'From the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat with violence, must enjoy all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not for any amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, I may say, without violation of humanity, that I should willingly look out upon them from Slanes Castle.' Johnson's Works, ix. 15.

[309] See ante, p. 68.

[310] Horace. Odes, i. 2.

[311] See ante, ii. 428.

[312] Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk. Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—'Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house and a farm or two adjoining.' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 187.

[313] See ante, ii. 421, note 1.

[314] Since the accession of George I. only one parliament had had so few as five sessions, and it was dissolved before its time by his death. One had six sessions, six seven sessions, (including the one that was now sitting,) and one eight. There was therefore so little dread of a sudden dissolution that for five years of each parliament the members durst contradict the populace.

[315] To Miss Burney Johnson once said:—'Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 343. 'Once at Mr. Thrale's, when Reynolds left the room, Johnson observed:—"There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 82. Burke wrote of him:—'He had a strong turn for humour, and well saw the weak sides of things. He enjoyed every circumstance of his good fortune, and had no affectation on that subject. And I do not know a fault or weakness of his that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 638.

[316] He visited Devonshire in 1762. Ante, i. 377.

[317] Horace Walpole, describing the coronation of George III, writes:— 'One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block.' Letters, iii. 438. Sir William Forbes says:—'He often put me in mind of an ancient Hero, and I remember Dr. Johnson was positive that he resembled Homer's character of Sarpedon.' Life of Beattie, ed. 1824, Appendix D. Mrs. Piozzi says:—'The Earl dressed in his robes at the coronation and Mrs. Siddons in the character of Murphy's Euphrasia were the noblest specimens of the human race I ever saw.' Synonymy, i.43. He sprang from a race of rebels. 'He united in his person,' says Forbes, 'the four earldoms of Errol, Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Callander.' The last two were attainted in 1715, and Kilmarnock in 1745. Life of Beattie, Appendix D.

[318] Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son [iii. 130], complains of one who argued in an indiscriminate manner with men of all ranks, Probably the noble lord had felt with some uneasiness what it was to encounter stronger abilities than his own. If a peer will engage at foils with his inferior in station, he must expect that his inferior in station will avail himself of every advantage; otherwise it is not a fair trial of strength and skill. The same will hold in a contest of reason, or of wit.—A certain king entered the lists of genius with Voltaire. The consequence was, that, though the king had great and brilliant talents, Voltaire had such a superiority that his majesty could not bear it; and the poet was dismissed, or escaped, from that court.—In the reign of James I. of England, Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, a peer of Scotland, from a vain ambition to excel a fencing-master in his own art, played at rapier and dagger with him. The fencing-master, whose fame and bread were at stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes. Exasperated at this, Lord Sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the fencing-master assassinated; for which his lordship was capitally tried, condemned, and hanged. Not being a peer of England, he was tried by the name of Robert Crichton, Esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of three hundred years' standing.—See the State Trials; and the History of England by Hume, who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank. BOSWELL. The 'stronger abilities' that Chesterfield encountered were Johnson's. Boswell thought wrongly that it was of Johnson that his Lordship complained in his letters to his son. Ante, i. 267, note 2. 'A certain King' was Frederick the Great. Ante, i. 434. The fencing-master was murdered in his own house in London, five years after Sanquhar (or Sanquire) had lost his eye. Bacon, who was Solicitor-General, said:—'Certainly the circumstance of time is heavy unto you; it is now five years since this unfortunate man, Turner, be it upon accident or despight, gave the provocation which was the seed of your malice.' State Trials, ii. 743, and Hume's History, ed. 1802, vi. 61.

[319] Hamlet, act i. sc. 2.

[320] Perhaps Lord Errol was the Scotch Lord mentioned ante, iii. 170, and the nobleman mentioned ib. p. 329.

[321] 'Pitied by gentle minds Kilmarnock died.' Ante. i. 180.

[322] Sir Walter Scott describes the talk that he had in 1814 near Slains Castle with an old fisherman. 'The old man says Slains is now inhabited by a Mr. Bowles, who comes so far from the southward that naebody kens whare he comes frae. "Was he frae the Indies?" "Na; he did not think he came that road. He was far frae the Southland. Naebody ever heard the name of the place; but he had brought more guid out o' Peterhead than a' the Lords he had seen in Slains, and he had seen three."' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 188. The first of the three was Johnson's host.

[323] See ante, ii. 153, and iii. 1, note 2.

[324] Smollett, in Humphry Clinker (Letter of Sept. 6), writing of the Highlanders and their chiefs, says:—'The original attachment is founded on something prior to the feudal system, about which the writers of this age have made such a pother, as if it was a new discovery, like the Copernican system ... For my part I expect to see the use of trunk-hose and buttered ale ascribed to the influence of the feudal system.' See ante, ii. 177.

[325] Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:—'Vous conviendrez que les nobles sont peu menages par vos auteurs; le sot, le fat, ou le malhonnete homme mele dans l'intrigue est presque toujours un lord.' Garrick Corres, ii. 561. Dr. Moore (View of Society in France, i. 29) writing in 1779 says:—'I am convinced there is no country in Europe where royal favour, high birth, and the military profession could be allowed such privileges as they have in France, and where there would be so few instances of their producing rough and brutal behaviour to inferiors.' Mrs. Piozzi, writing in 1784, though she did not publish her book till 1789, said:—'The French are really a contented race of mortals;—precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads gentle, humble life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain.' Journey through France, i. 13.

[326] He is the worthy son of a worthy father, the late Lord Strichen, one of our judges, to whose kind notice I was much obliged. Lord Strichen was a man not only honest, but highly generous; for after his succession to the family estate, he paid a large sum of debts contracted by his predecessor, which he was not under any obligation to pay. Let me here, for the credit of Ayrshire, my own county, record a noble instance of liberal honesty in William Hutchison, drover, in Lanehead, Kyle, who formerly obtained a full discharge from his creditors upon a composition of his debts; but upon being restored to good circumstances, invited his creditors last winter to a dinner, without telling the reason, and paid them their full sums, principal and interest. They presented him with a piece of plate, with an inscription to commemorate this extraordinary instance of true worth; which should make some people in Scotland blush, while, though mean themselves, they strut about under the protection of great alliance, conscious of the wretchedness of numbers who have lost by them, to whom they never think of making reparation, but indulge themselves and their families in most unsuitable expence. BOSWELL.

[327] See ante, ii. 194; iii. 353; and iv. June 30, 1784.

[328] Malone says that 'Lord Auchinleck told his son one day that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in the Scotch and English law than to show his knowledge. This Mr. Boswell owned he had found to be true.' European Magazine, 1798, p. 376.

[329] See ante, iv. 8, note 3, and iv. 20.

[330] Colman had translated Terence. Ante, iv. 18.

[331] Dr. Nugent was Burke's father-in-law. Ante, i. 477.

[332] Lord Charlemont left behind him a History of Italian Poetry. Hardy's Charlemont, i. 306, ii. 437.

[333] See ante, i. 250, and ii. 378, note 1.

[334] Since the first edition, it has been suggested by one of the club, who knew Mr. Vesey better than Dr. Johnson and I, that we did not assign him a proper place; for he was quite unskilled in Irish antiquities and Celtick learning, but might with propriety have been made professor of architecture, which he understood well, and has left a very good specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art, by an elegant house built on a plan of his own formation, at Lucan, a few miles from Dublin. BOSWELL. See ante, iv. 28.

[335] Sir William Jones, who died at the age of forty-seven, had 'studied eight languages critically, eight less perfectly, but all intelligible with a dictionary, and twelve least perfectly, but all attainable.' Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones, ed. 1815, p. 465. See ante, iv. 69.

[336] See ante, i. 478.

[337] See ante, p. 16.

[338] Mackintosh in his Life, ii. 171, says:—'From the refinements of abstruse speculation Johnson was withheld, partly perhaps by that repugnance to such subtleties which much experience often inspires, and partly also by a secret dread that they might disturb those prejudices in which his mind had found repose from the agitations of doubt.'

[339] See ante, iv. 11, note 1.

[340] Our Club, originally at the Turk's Head, Gerrard-street, then at Prince's, Sackville-street, now at Baxter's, Dover-street, which at Mr. Garrick's funeral acquired a name for the first time, and was called THE LITERARY CLUB, was instituted in 1764, and now consists of thirty-five members. It has, since 1773, been greatly augmented; and though Dr. Johnson with justice observed, that, by losing Goldsmith, Garrick, Nugent, Chamier, Beauclerk, we had lost what would make an eminent club, yet when I mentioned, as an accession, Mr. Fox, Dr. George Fordyce, Sir Charles Bunbury, Lord Ossory, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Adam Smith, Mr. R.B. Sheridan, the Bishops of Kilaloe and St. Asaph, Dean Marley, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Scott of the Commons, Earl Spencer, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Lord Elliott, Mr. Malone, Dr. Joseph Warton, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Lord Lucan, Mr. Burke junior, Lord Palmerston, Dr. Burney, Sir William Hamilton, and Dr. Warren, it will be acknowledged that we might establish a second university of high reputation. BOSWELL. Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote in 1780 (Life, p. 241):—'Of our club I will only say that there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are not capable of giving information.'

[341] Here, unluckily, the windows had no pullies; and Dr. Johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one of them kept open. Thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in his Journey. I regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should have changed very little; but I should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth,' for I really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said. BOSWELL. Johnson, after a half-apology for 'these diminutive observations' on Scotch windows and fresh air, continues:—'The true state of every nation is the state of common life.' Works, ix. 18. Boswell a second time (ante, ii. 311) returns to Johnson's assertion that 'a Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry.' Works, ix. 116.

[342] See ante, p. 40.

[343] A protest may be entered on the part of most Scotsmen against the Doctor's taste in this particular. A Finnon haddock dried over the smoke of the sea-weed, and sprinkled with salt water during the process, acquires a relish of a very peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at a dinner, where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnon-fish. These were served round without distinction whence they came; but only one gentleman, out of twelve present, espoused the cause of philosophy. WALTER SCOTT.

[344] It is the custom in Scotland for the judges of the Court of Session to have the title of lords, from their estates; thus Mr. Burnett is Lord Monboddo, as Mr. Home was Lord Kames. There is something a little awkward in this; for they are denominated in deeds by their names, with the addition of 'one of the Senators of the College of Justice;' and subscribe their Christian and surnames, as James Burnett, Henry Home, even in judicial acts. BOSWELL. See ante, p. 77, note 4.

[345] See ante, ii. 344, where Johnson says:—'A judge may be a farmer, but he is not to geld his own pigs.'

[346]

'Not to admire is all the art I know To make men happy and to keep them so.'

Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epistles, i. vi. 1.

[347] See ante, i. 461.

[348] See ante, iv. 152.

[349] See ante, iii. 322.

[350] In the Gent. Mag. for 1755, p. 42, among the deaths is entered 'Sir James Lowther, Bart., reckoned the richest commoner in Great Britain, and worth above a million.' According to Lord Shelburne, Lord Sunderland, who had been advised 'to nominate Lowther one of his Treasury on account of his great property,' appointed him to call on him. After waiting for some time he rang to ask whether he had come, 'The servants answered that nobody had called; upon his repeating the inquiry they said that there was an old man, somewhat wet, sitting by the fireside in the hall, who they supposed had some petition to deliver to his lordship. When he went out it proved to be Sir James Lowther. Lord Sunderland desired him to be sent about his business, saying that no such mean fellow should sit at his Treasury.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 34.

[351] I do not know what was at this time the state of the parliamentary interest of the ancient family of Lowther; a family before the Conquest; but all the nation knows it to be very extensive at present. A due mixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy and munificence, characterises its present Representative. BOSWELL. Boswell, most unhappily not clearly seeing where his own genius lay, too often sought to obtain fame and position by the favour of some great man. For some years he courted in a very gross manner 'the present Representative,' the first Earl of Lonsdale, who treated him with great brutality. Letters of Boswell, pp. 271, 294, 324, and ante, iv. May 15, 1783. In the Ann. Reg. 1771, p. 56, it is shewn how by this bad man 'the whole county of Cumberland was thrown into a state of the greatest terror and confusion; four hundred ejectments were served in one day.' Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 418) says that 'he was more detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants and dependants.' Lord Albemarle (Memoirs of Rockingham, ii. 70) describes the 'bad Lord Lonsdale. He exacted a serf-like submission from his poor and abject dependants. He professed a thorough contempt for modern refinements. Grass grew in the neglected approaches to his mansion.... Awe and silence pervaded the inhabitants [of Penrith] when the gloomy despot traversed their streets. He might have been taken for a Judge Jefferies about to open a royal commission to try them as state criminals... In some years of his life he resisted the payment of all bills.' Among his creditors was Wordsworth's father, 'who died leaving the poet and four other helpless children. The executors of the will, foreseeing the result of a legal contest with a millionaire, withdrew opposition, trusting to Lord Lonsdale's sense of justice for payment. They leaned on a broken reed, the wealthy debtor "Died and made no sign."' [2 Henry VI, act iii. sc. 3.] See De Quincey's Works, iii. 151.

[352] 'Let us not,' he says, 'make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence.' Works, ix. 20.

[353] Note by Lord Hailes. 'The cathedral of Elgin was burnt by the Lord of Badenoch, because the Bishop of Moray had pronounced an award not to his liking. The indemnification that the see obtained was, that the Lord of Badenoch stood for three days bare-footed at the great gate of the cathedral. The story is in the Chartulary of Elgin.' BOSWELL. The cathedral was rebuilt in 1407-20, but the lead was stripped from the roof by the Regent Murray, and the building went to ruin. Murray's Handbook, ed. 1867, p. 303. 'There is,' writes Johnson (Works, ix. 20), 'still extant in the books of the council an order ... directing that the lead, which covers the two cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen, shall be taken away, and converted into money for the support of the army.... The two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be sold in Holland. I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege was lost at sea.' On this Horace Walpole remarks (Letters, vii. 484):—'I confess I have not quite so heinous an idea of sacrilege as Dr. Johnson. Of all kinds of robbery, that appears to me the lightest species which injures nobody. Dr. Johnson is so pious that in his journey to your country he flatters himself that all his readers will join him in enjoying the destruction of two Dutch crews, who were swallowed up by the ocean after they had robbed a church.'

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

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

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

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

[358] See ante, p. 76.

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

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

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

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

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

[364] See ante, i. 125.

[365] See ante, i. 456, and post, Sept. 22.

[366] See ante, ii. 82, and post, Oct. 27.

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

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

[368]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bacon, in his Essay Of Vicissitude of Things (No. 58), says:—'It is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude lest we become giddy' This may have suggested Gifford's last two lines. Reflections on a Grave, &c. (ante, ii. 26), published in 1766, and perhaps written in part by Johnson, has a line borrowed from this poem:—

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

Cowper, Table-Talk, ed. 1786, i. 165, writes of

'The sweet vicissitudes of day and night.'

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

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

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

[370] See ante, ii. 51.

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

[372] See post, Sept. 13 and 28.

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

[374]

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

Macbeth, act i. sc. 3.

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

[376] See post, Nov. 5.

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

[378] See ante, iii. 336, and post, Nov. 7.

[379] See post, Oct. 27.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[386] See ante, ii. 169, note 2, and post, Sept. 2. Johnson, so far as I have observed, spelt the name Boswel.

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

[388] See ante, iii. 361.

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

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

[391] See ante, p. 45.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[402] Act iii. sc. 2.

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

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

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

[406] St. Matthew, v. 44.

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

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

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

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

[411] Act i. sc. 5.

[412] Boswell forgets scoundrelism, ante, p. 106, which, I suppose, Johnson coined.

[413] See ante, ii. 154, note 3. Peter Paragraph is one of the characters in Foote's Comedy of The Orators.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[421] It is very odd, that when these roads were made, there was no care taken for Inns. The King's House, and the General's Hut, are miserable places; but the project and plans were purely military. WALTER SCOTT. Johnson found good entertainment here, 'We had eggs and bacon and mutton, with wine, rum, and whisky. I had water.' Piozzi Letters, i. 124.

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

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

[424] See ante, iii. 246.

[425] A McQueen is a Highland mode of expression. An Englishman would say one McQueen. But where there are clans or tribes of men, distinguished by patronymick surnames, the individuals of each are considered as if they were of different species, at least as much as nations are distinguished; so that a McQueen, a McDonald, a McLean, is said, as we say a Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard. BOSWELL.

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

[427] By the Chevalier Ramsay.

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

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

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

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

[432] See ante, iii. 242.

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

Johnson thus mentions his gift: 'I presented her with a book which I happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to think that she forgets me.' Works, ix. 32. The first edition of Cocker's Arithmetic was published about 1660. Brit. Mus. Cata. Though Johnson says that 'a book of science is inexhaustible,' yet in The Rambler, No. 154, he asserts that 'the principles of arithmetick and geometry may be comprehended by a close attention in a few days.' Mrs. Piozzi says (Anec. p. 77) that 'when Mr. Johnson felt his fancy disordered, his constant recurrence was to arithmetic; and one day that he was confined to his chamber, and I enquired what he had been doing to divert himself, he shewed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it; no other indeed than that the national debt, computing it at L180,000,000, would, if converted into silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of the whole earth.' See ante, iii. 207, and iv. 171, note 3.

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

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

[436]

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

2 Henry IV. act iii. sc. 1.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[444] Act iii. sc. 4.

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

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

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

[448] See ante, p. 89.

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

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

[451]

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

Clough's Bothie, p. 125

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

[453] See ante, ii. 157.

[454] See ante, i. 449.

[455] See ante, ii. 99.

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

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

[458] Mr. Carruthers, in his edition of Boswell's Hebrides, says (p. xiv):—'The new management and high rents took the tacksmen, or larger tenants, by surprise. They were indignant at the treatment they received, and selling off their stock they emigrated to America. In the twenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailed from the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containing about 6400 persons, who carried with them in specie at least L38,400. A desperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of Lord Macdonald. They bound themselves by a solemn oath not to offer for any farm that might become vacant. The combination failed of its object, but it appeared so formidable in the eyes of the "English-bred chieftain," that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwards returned.'

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

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

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

[462] See ante, iii. 85, and post, Oct. 28.

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

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

[465] VARIOUS READINGS. Line 2. In the manuscript, Dr. Johnson, instead of rupibus obsita, had written imbribus uvida, and uvida nubibus, but struck them both out. Lines 15 and 16. Instead of these two lines, he had written, but afterwards struck out, the following:—

Parare posse, utcunque jactet Grandiloquus nimis alta Zeno.

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

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

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

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

[469] See ante, iii. 275.

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

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

[472] See Appendix B.

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

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

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

[476] See ante, p. 95.

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

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

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

[480] 'By the term second sight seems to be meant a mode of seeing superadded to that which nature generally bestows. In the Erse it is called Taisch; which signifies likewise a spectre or a vision.' Johnson's Works, ix. 105.

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

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

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

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

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

[486] See post, Oct. 5.

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

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

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

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

[491]

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

FRANCIS. Horace, 2, Odes, xvi. 1.

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

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

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

[495] See post, Nov. 10.

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

[497] 'The money which he raises annually by rent from all his dominions, which contain at least 50,000 acres, is not believed to exceed L250; but as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sells every year great numbers of cattle ... The wine circulates vigorously, and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always at hand.' Piozzi Letters, i. 142. 'Of wine and punch they are very liberal, for they get them cheap; but as there is no custom-house on the island, they can hardly be considered as smugglers.' Ib. p. 160. 'Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impost is obtained here at an easy rate.' Johnson's Works, ix. 52.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[507] See post Sept. 17.

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

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

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

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

[512] See ante, ii. 61, and post, Oct. 1.

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

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

[515] According to Dr. Warton (Essay on Pope, ii. 140) he received L5000. 'Old Marlborough,' wrote Horace Walpole in March, 1742 (Letters, i. 139), 'has at last published her Memoirs; they are digested by one Hooke, who wrote a Roman history; but from her materials, which are so womanish that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and petticoat with them.'

[516] See ante, i. 153

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

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

[519] Mr. Croker says that 'though he sold a great tract of land in Harris, he left at his death in 1801 the original debt of L50,000 [Boswell says L40,000] increased to L70,000.' When Johnson visited Macleod at Dunvegan, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'Here, though poor Macleod had been left by his grandfather overwhelmed with debts, we had another exhibition of feudal hospitality. There were two stags in the house, and venison came to the table every day in its various forms. Macleod, besides his estate in Sky, larger I suppose than some English counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and of his isles uninhabited I doubt if he very exactly knows the number, I told him that he was a mighty monarch. Such dominions fill an Englishman with envious wonder; but when he surveys the naked mountain, and treads the quaking moor; and wanders over the wild regions of gloomy barrenness, his wonder may continue, but his envy ceases. The unprofitableness of these vast domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances. The heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me how wealthy he should be if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate which the surveyor reports to contain 80,000 acres, rented at L600 a year.' Piozzi Letters, i. 154.

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

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

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

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

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

[525]

'Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee.'

The Vanity of Human Wishes.

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

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

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

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

[530]

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

FRANCIS. Horace, i Epis. ii. II.

[531] See ante, p. 16.

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

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

[534] Yet he said of him:—'There is nothing conclusive in his talk.' Ante iii. 57.

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

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

[537]

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

From 'The Highland Laddie, written long since by Allan Ramsay, and now sung at Ranelagh and all the other gardens; often fondly encored, and sometimes ridiculously hissed.' Gent. Mag. 1750, p. 325.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOSWELL.

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

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

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

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

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

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