Sept. 28.] Boswell's leading the conversation. 301 We were on a particular point which is common to each. merry with Corrichatachin, on Dr. Johnson's whispering with his wife. She, perceiving this, humorously cried, 'I am in love with him. What is it to live and not to love?' Upon her saying something, which I did not hear, or cannot recollect, he seized her hand eagerly, and kissed it. As we were going, the Scottish phrase of honest man!' which is an expression of kindness and regard, was again and again applied by the company to Dr. Johnson. I was also treated with much civility; and I must take some merit from my assiduous attention to him, and from my contriving that he shall be easy wherever he goes, that he shall not be asked twice to eat or drink any thing (which always disgusts him), that he shall be provided with water at his meals, and many such little things, which, if not attended to, would fret him. I also may be allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation: I do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in examining a witness-starting topics, and making him pursue them. He appears to me like a great mill, into which a subject is thrown to be ground. It requires, indeed, fertile minds to furnish materials for this mill. I regret whenever I see it unemployed; but sometimes I feel myself quite barren, and have nothing to throw in. I know not if this mill be a good figure; though Pope makes his mind a mill for turning verses'. us. We set out about four. Young Corrichatachin went with We had a fine evening, and arrived in good time at Ostig, the residence of Mr. Martin M'Pherson, minister of Slate. It is a pretty good house, built by his father, upon a farm near the church. We were received here with much kindness by Mr. and Mrs. M'Pherson, and his sister, Miss M'Pherson, who pleased Dr. Johnson much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the guittar. He afterwards sent her 1 'If ev'ry wheel of that unwearied mill That turned ten thousand verses now stands still.' 302 Dr. McPherson's Latin poetry. [Sept. 28. a present of his Rasselas. In his bed-chamber was a press stored with books, Greek, Latin, French, and English, most of which had belonged to the father of our host, the learned Dr. McPherson; who, though his Dissertations have been mentioned in a former page' as unsatisfactory, was a man of distinguished talents. Dr. Johnson looked at a Latin paraphrase of the song of Moses, written by him, and published in the Scots Magazine for 1747, and said, 'It does him honour; he has a good deal of Latin, and good Latin.' Dr. M Pherson published also in the same magazine, June 1739, an original Latin ode, which he wrote from the isle of Barra, where he was minister for some years. It is very poetical, and exhibits a striking proof how much all things depend upon comparison: for Barra, it seems, appeared to him so much worse than Sky, his natale solum3, that he languished for its blessed mountains,' and thought himself buried alive amongst barbarians where he was. My readers will probably not be displeased to have a specimen of this ode: 'Hei mihi! quantos patior dolores, Dum procul specto juga ter beata; 'Ingemo, indignor, crucior, quod inter Torpeo languens, morior sepultus, Carcere cœco.' After wishing for wings to fly over to his dear country, which was in his view, from what he calls Thule, as being the most western isle of Scotland, except St. Kilda; after describing the pleasures of society, and the miseries of solitude, he, at last, with becoming propriety, has recourse to the only sure relief of thinking men,-Sursum corda'-the hope of a better world, disposes his mind to resignation: 2 1 Ante, p. 235. 'Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos 'Lift up your hearts. ' Interim Sept. 29.] Mr. M‘Pherson's estimate of Johnson. 'Interim fiat, tua, rex, voluntas: Erigor sursum quoties subit spes He concludes in a noble strain of orthodox piety: 'Vita tum demum vocitanda vita est. Tum licet gratos socios habere, Seraphim et sanctos TRIADEM verendam WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29'. 303 After a very good sleep, I rose more refreshed than I had been for some nights. We were now at but a little distance from the shore, and saw the sea from our windows, which made our voyage seem nearer. Mr. McPherson's manners and address pleased us much. He appeared to be a man of such intelligence and taste as to be sensible of the extraordinary powers of his illustrious guest. He said to me, 'Dr. Johnson is an honour to mankind; and, if the expression may be used, is an honour to religion.' ' Mr. Croker prints the following letter written to Macleod the day before :'Ostig, 28th Sept. 1773. 'DEAR SIR,-We are now on the margin of the sea, waiting for a boat and a wind. Boswell grows impatient; but the kind treatment which I find wherever I go, makes me leave, with some heaviness of heart, an island which I am not very likely to see again. Having now gone as far as horses can carry us, we thankfully return them. My steed will, I hope, be received with kindness;—he has borne me, heavy as I am, over ground both rough and steep, with great fidelity; and for the use of him, as for your other favours, I hope you will believe me thankful, and willing, at whatever distance we may be placed, to shew my sense of your kindness, by any offices of friendship that may fall within my power. 'Lady Macleod and the young ladies have, by their hospitality and politeness, made an impression on my mind, which will not easily be effaced. Be pleased to tell them, that I remember them with great tenderness, and great respect.—I am, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'P.S.-We passed two days at Talisker very happily, both by the pleasantness of the place and elegance of our reception.' Col, 304 Shenstone. [Sept. 29. Col, who had gone yesterday to pay a visit at Camuscross, joined us this morning at breakfast. Some other gentlemen also came to enjoy the entertainment of Dr. Johnson's conversation. The day was windy and rainy, so that we had just seized a happy interval for our journey last night. We had good entertainment here, better accommodation than at Corrichatachin, and time enough to ourselves. The hours slipped along imperceptibly. We talked of Shenstone. Dr. Johnson said he was a good layer-out of land', but would not allow him to approach excellence as a poet. He said, he believed he had tried to read all his Love Pastorals, but did not get through them. I repeated the stanza, 'She gazed as I slowly withdrew; My path I could hardly discern; So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return'.' He said, 'That seems to be pretty.' I observed that Shenstone, from his short maxims in prose, appeared to have some power of thinking; but Dr. Johnson would not allow him that merit'. He agreed, however, with Shenstone, that it was wrong in the brother of one of his correspondents to burn his letters*: 'for, (said he,) Shenstone was a man whose 'Johnson (Works, viii. 409), after describing how Shenstone laid out the Leasowes, continues :-'Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to catch the view; to make water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden, demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a surly and sullen speculator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason.' 'Johnson quotes this and the two preceding stanzas as 'a passage, to which if any mind denies its sympathy, it has no acquaintance with love or nature.' Ib. p. 413. ''His mind was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he had no value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself cultivated.' Ib. p. 411. In the preface to vol. iii. of Shenstone's Works, ed. 1773, a quotation is given (p. vi.) from one of the poet's letters in which he com correspondence Sept. 29.] Night-caps. 305 correspondence was an honour.' He was this afternoon full of critical severity, and dealt about his censures on all sides. He said, Hammond's Love Elegies were poor things'. He spoke contemptuously of our lively and elegant, though too licentious, Lyrick bard, Hanbury Williams, and said, he had no fame, but from boys who drank with him".' While he was in this mood, I was unfortunate enough, simply perhaps, but I could not help thinking, undeservedly, to come within the whiff and wind of his fell sword'.' I asked him, if he had ever been accustomed to wear a night-cap. He said 'No.' I asked, if it was best not to wear one. JOHNSON. Sir, I had this custom by chance, and perhaps no man shall ever know whether it is best to sleep with or without a night-cap.' Soon afterwards he was laughing at some deficiency in the Highlands, and said, 'One might as well go without shoes and stockings.' Thinking to have a little hit at his own deficiency, I ventured to add, or without a night-cap, Sir.' But I had better have been silent; for he retorted directly. I do not see the connection there (laughing). Nobody before was ever foolish enough to ask whether it was best to wear a night-cap or not. This comes of being plains of this burning. He writes:-'I look upon my Letters as some of my chef-d'œuvres.' On p. 301, after mentioning Rasselas, he continues:-'Did I tell you I had a letter from Johnson, inclosing Vernon's Parish-clerk?' The truth is these elegies have neither passion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no passion: he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neæra or Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity.' Johnson's Works, viii. 91. See ante, iv. 120. 'His lines on Pulteney, Earl of Bath, still deserve some fame :Leave a blank here and there in each page To enrol the fair deeds of his youth! When you mention the acts of his age, Leave a blank for his honour and truth.' From The Statesman, H. C. Williams's Odes, p. 47. "Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2. V.-20 a little |