which I regretted much, as we should have had a very elegant reception from his lordship. We found here but an indifferent inn.' Dr. Johnson wrote a long letter to Mrs. Thrale. I wondered to see him write so much so easily. He verified his own doctrine, that "a man may always write when he will set himself doggedly to it."

Thursday, Aug. 26. - We got a fresh chaise here, a very good one, and very good horses. We breakfasted at Cullen. They set down dried haddocks broiled, along with our tea. I ate one; but Dr. Johnson was disgusted by the sight of them, so they were removed.2 Cullen has a comfortable appearance, though but a very small town, and the houses mostly poor buildings.

I called on Mr. Robertson, who has the charge of Lord Findlater's affairs, and was formerly Lord Monboddo's clerk, was three times in France with him, and translated Condamine's Account of the Savage Girl, to which his lordship wrote a preface, containing several remarks of his own. Robertson said he did not believe so much as his lordship did; that it was plain to him the girl confounded what she imagined with what she remembered; that, besides, she perceived Condamine and Lord Monboddo forming theories, and she adapted her story to them.

Dr. Johnson said, "It is a pity to see Lord Monboddo publish such notions as he has done; a man of sense, and of so much elegant learning. There would be little in a fool doing it; we should only laugh: but when a wise man does it, we are sorry. Other people have strange notions; but they conceal them. If they have tails, they hide them; but Monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel." I shall here put down some more remarks of Dr. Johnson's on Lord Monboddo, which were not made exactly at this time, but come in well from connection. He said he did not approve of a judge's calling himself Farmer Burnett, and going about with a little round hat.

He

laughed heartily at his lordship's saying he was an enthusiastical farmer; "For," said he, "what can he do in farming by his enthusiasm ?" Here, however, I think Dr. Johnson mistaken. He who wishes to be successful, or happy, ought to be enthusiastical, that is to say, very keen in all the occupations or diversions of life. An ordinary gentleman-farmer will be satisfied with looking at his fields once or twice a day: an enthusiastical farmer will be constantly employed on them; will have his mind earnestly engaged; will talk perpetually of them. But Dr. Johnson has much of the nil admirari in smaller concerns. That survey of life which gave birth to his "Vanity of Human Wishes early sobered his mind. Besides, so great a mind as his cannot be moved by inferior objects: an elephant does not run and skip like lesser animals.

Mr. Robertson sent a servant with us, to show us through Lord Findlater's wood, by which our way was shortened, and we saw some part of his domain, which is indeed admirably laid out. Dr. Johnson did not choose to walk through it. He always said that he was not come to Scotland to see fine places, of which there were enough in England; but wild objects-mountainswaterfalls-peculiar manners; in short, things which he had not seen before. I have a notion that he at no time has had much taste for rural beauties. I have myself very little.

"A

Dr. Johnson said there was nothing more contemptible than a country gentleman living beyond his income, and every year growing poorer and poorer. He spoke strongly of the influence which a man has by being rich. man," said he, "who keeps his money, has in reality more use from it than he can have by spending it." I observed that this looked very like a paradox: but he explained it thus: "If it were certain that a man would keep his money locked up for ever, to be sure he would have no influence; but, as so many want money, and he has the power of giving it, and they

Here, unluckily, the windows had no pulleys, 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 erroneonly 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. Boswell furnished Johnson with a long list of errors-great and small-in his Journey, not one, I think, of which Johnson gave himself the trouble of Correcting. They will be found in the Appendix. — CROKER. 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.

3 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 surname, as James Burnett, Henry Home, even in judicial acts. BOSWELL. We see that the same custom prevailed amongst other gentlemen as well as the judges. All the lairds who are called by the names of their estates, as Rasay, Col, &c., sign their Christian and surnames, as J. Macleod, A. Maclean, &c. The dignity of the judicial bench has consecrated, in the case of the judges, what was once the common practice of the country. CROKER.

4 Why not, in a remote country retirement?- CROKer. It may be worth while to remark, that down to a very recent period, judges both in London and Edinburgh were distinguished, when mixing in common society, by certain grave peculiarities of dress: these, with some few ancient and venerable exceptions, have now disappeared and it seems doubtful whether the innovation was wise. LOCKHART, 1835.

know not but by gaining his favour they may obtain it, the rich man will always have the greatest influence. He, again, who lavishes his money, is laughed at as foolish, and in a great degree with justice, considering how much is spent from vanity. Even those who partake of a man's hospitality have but a transient kindness for him. If he has not the command of money, people know he cannot help them if he would; whereas the rich man always can, if he will, and for the chance of that, will have much weight." BOSWELL. "But philosophers and satirists have all treated a miser as contemptible." JOHNSON. "He is so philosophically; but not in the practice of life. BosWELL. "Let me see now: I do not know the instances of misers in England, so as to examine into their influence." JOHNSON. "We have had few misers in England." BOSWELL. "There was Lowther." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, Lowther, by keeping his money, had the command of the county, which the family has now lost, by spending it. I take it he lent a great deal; and that is the way to have influence, and yet preserve one's wealth. A man may lend his money upon very good security, and yet have his debtor much under his power." BOSWELL. "No doubt, Sr. He can always distress him for the money; as no man borrows who is able to pay on demand quite conveniently."

We dined at Elgin, and saw the noble ruins of the cathedral. Though it rained much, Dr. Johnson examined them with the most patient attention. He could not here feel any abhorrence at the Scottish reformers, for he had been told by Lord Hailes, that it was destroyed before the reformation, by the Lord of Badenoch3, who had a quarrel with the bishop. The bishop's house, and those of the other clergy, which are still pretty entire, do not seem to have been proportioned to the magnificence of the

cathedral, which has been of great extent, and had very fine carved work. The ground within the walls of the cathedral is employed as a burying-place. The family of Gordon have their vault here; but it has nothing grand.

We passed Gordon Castle this forenoon, which has a princely appearance. Fochabers, the neighbouring village, is a poor place, many of the houses being ruinous; but it is remarkable, they have in general orchards well stored with appletrees. Elgin has what in England are called piazzas, that run in many places on each side of the street. It must have been a much better place formerly. Probably it had piazzas all along the town, as I have seen at Bologna. I approved much of such structures in a town, on account of their convenience in wet weather. Dr. Johnson disapproved of them, "because," said he, "it makes the under story of a house very dark, which greatly overbalances the conveniency, when it is considered how small a part of the year it rains; how few are usually in the street at such times; that many who are might as well be at home; and the little that people suffer, supposing them to be as much wet as they commonly are in walking a street."

We fared but ill at our inn here; and Dr. Johnson said, this was the first time he had seen a dinner in Scotland that he could not

eat.

In the afternoon, we drove over the very heath where Macbeth met the witches, according to tradition. Dr. Johnson again solemnly repeated

"How far is't call'd to Fores? What are these,
So wither'd, and so wild in their attire?
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't?"

He repeated a good deal more of Macbeth.
His recitation was grand and affecting, and, as

He means, no doubt, Sir James Lowther, of Whitehaven, Bart., who died in 1755, immensely rich, but without issue, and his estates devolved on his relation, Sir James, afterwards first Earl of Lonsdale. CROKER.

21 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, economy and munificence, characterises its present representative.-BOSWELL. The second Viscount and only Earl Lonsdale of his branch, who was recommended to Boswell's peculiar favour by having married Lady Mary Stuart, the daughter of John Earl of Bute.- CROKER.

3 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 barefooted at the great gate of the cathedral. The story is in the chartulary of Elgin." - BosWELL. Light as this penance was. an Irish chieftain fared still better. The eighth Earl of Kildare was charged before Henry VII. with having burned the cathedral of Cashel: he expressed his contrition for this sacrilege, adding, that he never would have done it had he not thought that the arch. bishop had been in it. The king made him lord-lieutenant. -CROKER, 1831. Mr. Chambers observes to me, that "it is strange that Boswell should not have known, or that Lord Hailes should have failed to tell hitn, that the cathedral of Elgin had revived from the sacrilege of the Wolf of Badenoch, and its final ruin was accomplished by the cupidity of Murray, nicknamed the good Regent, who stripped the lead from the

roof, and shipped it to be sold in Holland; but the ship with its unhallowed freight sunk soon after it had left the harbour; so the cathedral was ruined, without any profit to the spoiler. "CROKER, 1846,

4 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 se questered magnificence which they maintained when catholics, 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.

5 Mr. William Macpherson, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who favoured me with several remarks on my first edition, observed on this passage, that "Boswell was quite mistaken in imagining that he saw the spot where Macbeth met the witches between Elgin and Fores. The true place is between Fores and Nairn. The "blasted heath" had been subsequently planted with trees, and when they were cut down some years ago, the late Laird of Brodie préserved a clump to mark the consecrated ground. The moor has been since replanted, but the older grove is still distinguish. able from the rest of the wood. The locality of the scene has never been doubted, as far as I can learn."- CROKER, 1835. Johnson, more accurate than Boswell, states that it was next day, on the journey between Fores and Noirs, that they entered upon the road on which Macbeth heard the fatal prediction."- CROKER, 1846.

Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to me, had no more tone than it should have: it was the better for it. He then parodied the "All hail" of the witches to Macbeth, addressing himself to me. I had purchased some land called Dalblair; and, as in Scotland it is customary to distinguish landed men by the name of their estates, I had thus two titles, Dalblair and young Auchinleck. 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!"

2

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 26 Wine-Cooper, from London." Friday, Aug. 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. John son's conversation. I spoke of Leonidas, and said there were some good passages in it. JOHNSON. "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 a 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 music." JOHNSON. "No, Sir, he cannot have pleasure in music; at least no power of producing music; for he who can produce music 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:

66

"Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound.
All at her work the village maiden sings;
Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around,
Revolves the sad vicissitude of things."3

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, 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.

said

Dr. Johnson thanked him for his book, and said "it is 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 M'Pherson 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." 5 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,

Then, as Mr. Boswell tells us, pronounced as a dissyllable. Affleck, but now, as it is written, Auchinleck. So I was informed by his lovely, lively, and intelligent granddaughter. Teresa Lady Elliot, of Stobbs, who was snatched from her friends by an early death in 1836.-CROKER.

* 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. ? See ante. p. 221.-C.

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.

5 My correspondent, Mr. Macpherson, corroborates the surmise of Boswell and Johnson, and says, that Dr. Macpherson was certainly the author of the book which goes under M'Aulay's name. The doctor, an excellent scholar, was father of my old acquaintance, Sir John Macpherson, sometime governor-general of India, and of Dr. Martin Macpherson, mentioned subsequently.- CROKER, 1835.

this "prosperous gentleman,' was not there. The old tower must be of great antiquity. There is a drawbridge - 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 slanting 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. 2

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 Calder manse 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 tailor 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 showed, 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 its 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

1 Mr. Campbell of Cawder was elevated to the peerage in 1796, by the title of Lord Cawdor. — LOCKHART.

2 Cawder Castle, here described, has been since much damaged by fire. - WALTER SCOTT.

3 Johnson in his own Journey says on this subject," The most learned of the Scottish Doctors would now gladly admit a form of prayer if the people would endure it. The zeal or rage of congregations has its different degrees.

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. By 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.

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. doubted whether Dr. Johnson would be present at 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 Dr. Johnson offence: but I would by no means agree that an excess of politeness, even to so great a man, should prevent what I esteem as one of the best pious regulations. I know nothing more beneficial, more comfortable, more agreeable, than that the little societies of each family should regularly assemble, and unite in praise and prayer to our heavenly Father, from whom we daily receive so much good, and may hope for more in a higher state of existence. I mentioned to Dr. Johnson the over-delicate scrupulosity of our host. He said, he had no objection to hear the prayer. This was a pleasing surprise to me; for he refused to go and hear Principal Robertson preach. "I will hear him," said he, "if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a sanction, by my presence, to a presbyterian assembly."

3

"Mr. Grant having prayed, Dr. Johnson said, his prayer was a very good one, but objected to his not having introduced the Lord's Prayer. He told us, that an Italian of some note in London said once to him, "We have in our service a prayer called the Pater Noster, which is a very fine composition. I wonder who is the author of it." A singular instance of ignorance in a man of some literature and general inquiry! +

In some parishes the Lord's Prayer is suffered in others, it is still rejected as a form, and he that should make it part of his supplication, would be suspected of heretical pravity."— CROKER,

4 Mr. Macpherson thought that this was Baretti - but of the two I should have rather suspected Martinelli (antè, April 15. 1773); but it is hardly credible of any one. — CROKER.