tomary to distinguish landed men by the name of their estates, I had thus two titles, Dalblair and Young Auchinlech. So my friend, in imitation of All hail Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! condescended to amuse himself with uttering All hail Dalblair! hail to thee, Laird of Auchinleck! We got to Fores at night, and found an admirable inn, in which Dr. Johnson was pleased to meet with a landlord who styled himself "Wine-Cooper, from LONDON." FRIDAY, AUGUST 27. It was dark when we came to Fores last night; so we did not see what is called King Duncan's monument. I shall now mark some gleanings of Dr. Johnson's conversation. I spoke of Leonidas, and said there were some good passages in it.— JOHNSON. 66 Why, you must seek for them."-He said, Paul Whitehead's Manners was a poor performance. Speaking of Derrick, he told me," he had a kindness for him, and had often said, that if his letters had been written by one of a more established name, they would have been thought very pretty letters." This morning I introduced the subject of the origin of evil.-JOHNSON. "Moral evil is occasioned by free will, which implies choice between good and evil. With all the evil that there is, there is no man but would rather be a free agent, than a mere machine without the evil; and what is best for each individual, must be best for the whole. If a man would rather be the machine, I cannot argue with him. He is a different being from me,' -BOSWELL. "A man, as a machine, may have agreeable sensations; for instance, he may have. pleasure in musick."-JOHNSON. "No, sir, he cannot have pleasure in musick; at least no power of producing musick; for he who can produce musick may let it alone: he who can play upon a fiddle may break it such a man is not a machine." This reasoning satisfied me. It is certain, there cannot be a free agent, unless there is the power of being evil as well as good. We must take the inherent possibilities of things into consideration, in our reasonings or conjectures concerning the works of GOD. We came to Nairn to breakfast. Though a county town and a royal burgh, it is a miserable place. Over the room where we sat, a girl was spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing an Erse song: "I'll warrant you, (said Dr. Johnson,) one of the songs of Ossian." He then repeated these lines: "Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound, I thought I had heard these lines before.-JOHNSON, "I fancy not, sir; for they are in a detached poem, the name of which I do not remember, written by one Giffard, a parson." I expected Mr. Kenneth M'Aulay, the minister of Calder, who published the history of St. Kilda, a book which Dr. Johnson liked, would have met us here, as I had written to him from Aberdeen. But I received a letter from him, telling me that he could not leave home, as he was to administer the sacrament the following Sunday, and earnestly requesting to see us at his manse. "We'll go,” said Dr. Johnson; which we accordingly did. Mrs. M'Aulay received us, and told us her husband was in the church distributing tokens.* We arrived between twelve and one o'clock, and it was near three before he came to us. Dr. Johnson thanked him for his book, and said "it was a very pretty piece of topography." M'Aulay did not seem much to mind the compliment. From his conversation, Dr. Johnson was persuaded that he had not written the book which goes under his name. I myself always suspected so; and I have been told it was written by the learned Dr. John McPherson of Sky, from the materials collected by M'Aulay. Dr. Johnson said privately to me, "There is a combination in it of which M'Aulay is not capable." However, he was exceedingly hospitable; and, as he obligingly promised us a route for our Tour through the Western Isles, we agreed to stay with him all night. After dinner, we walked to the old castle of Calder, (pronounced Cawder) the Thane of Cawdor's seat. I was sorry that my friend, this " pros * 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. perous gentleman," was not there. The old tower must be of great antiquity. There is a draw-bridge, -what has been a moat,-and an ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the walls have been built round it. The thickness of the walls, the small slaunting windows, and a great iron door at the entrance on the second story as you ascend the stairs, all indicate the rude times in which this castle was erected. There were here some large venerable trees. I was afraid of a quarrel between Dr. Johnson and Mr. M'Aulay, who talked slightingly of the lower English clergy. The Doctor gave him a frowning look, and said, "This is a day of novelties; I have seen old trees in Scotland, and I have heard the English clergy treated with disrespect." I dreaded that a whole evening at Caldermanse would be heavy; however, Mr. Grant, an intelligent and well-bred minister in the neighbourhood, was there, and assisted us by his conversation. Dr. Johnson, talking of hereditary occupations in the Highlands, said, "There is no harm in such a custom as this; but it is wrong to enforce it, and oblige a man to be a taylor or a smith, because his father has been one." This custom, however, is not peculiar to our Highlands; it is well known that in India a similar practice prevails. Mr. M'Aulay began a rhapsody against creeds and confessions. Dr. Johnson shewed, that "what he called imposition, was only a voluntary declaration of agreement in certain articles of faith, which a church has a right to require, just as any other society can insist on certain rules being observed by it's members. Nobody is compelled to be of the church, as nobody is compelled to enter into a society."-This was a very clear and just view of the subject: but M'Aulay could not be driven out of his track. Dr. Johnson said, "Sir, you are a bigot to laxness." Mr. M'Aulay and I laid the map of Scotland before us; and he pointed out a route for us from Inverness, by Fort Augustus, to Glenelg, Sky, Mull, Icolmkill, Lorn, and Inverary, which I wrote down. As my father was to begin the northern circuit about the 18th of September, it was necessary for us either to make our tour with great expedition, so as to get to Auchinleck before he set out, or to protract it, so as not to be there till his return, which would be about the 10th of October. M'Aulay's calculation, we were not to land in. Lorn till the 20th of September. I thought that the interruptions by bad days, or by occasional excursions, might make it ten days later; and I thought too, that we might perhaps go to Benbecula, and visit Clanranald, which would take a week' of itself. By Dr. Johnson went up with Mr. Grant to the library, which consisted of a tolerable collection; but the Doctor thought it rather a lady's library, with some Latin books in it by chance, than the library of a clergyman. It had only two of the Latin fathers, and one of the Greek fathers in Latin. I doubted whether Dr, Johnson would be present at a Presbyterian a Presbyterian prayer: I told Mr. M'Aulay so, and said that the Doctor might sit in the library while we were at family worship. Mr. M'Aulay said, he would omit it, rather than give |