Dr. Johnson said at breakfast to-day, "that it was but of late that historians bestowed pains and attention in consulting records, to attain to accuracy. Bacon, in writing his History of Henry VII. does not seem to have consulted any, but to have just taken what he found in other histories, and blended it with what he learnt by tradition." He agreed with me that there should be a chronicle kept in every considerable family, to preserve the characters and transactions of successive generations.

After dinner I started the subject of the temple of Anaitis. Mr. M'Queen had laid stress on the name given to the place by the country people, Ainnit, and added, "I knew not what to make of this piece of antiquity, till I met with the Anaitidis delubrum in Lydia, mentioned by Pausanias and the elder Pliny." Dr. Johnson, with his usual acuteness, examined Mr. M'Queen as to the meaning of the word Ainnit, in Erse; and it proved to be a water-place, or a place near water, "which, said Mr. M'Queen, agrees with all the descriptions of the temples of that goddess, which were situated. near rivers, that there might be water to wash the statue." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, the argument from the name is gone. The name is exhausted by what we see. We have no occasion to go to a distance, for what we can pick up under our feet. Had it been an accidental name, the similarity between it and Anaitis might have had something in it; but it turns out to be a mere physiological name." Macleod said, Mr. M'Queen's knowledge of etymology had de. stroyed his conjecture. JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; Mr. M'Queen is like the eagle mentioned by Waller, who was shot with an arrow feathered from his own wing."1 Mr. M'Queen would not, however, give up his conjecture. JOHNSON. "You have one possibility for you, and all possibilities against you. It is possible it may be the temple of Anaitis. But it is also possible that it may be a fortification; or it may be a place of christian worship, as the first Christians often chose remote and wild places, to make an impression on the mind; or, if it was a heathen temple, it may have been built near a river, for the purpose of lustration; and there is such a multitude of divinities, to whom it may have been dedicated, that the chance of its being a temple of Anaitis is hardly any thing. It is like throwing a grain of sand upon the sea-shore to-day, and thinking you may find it to-morrow. No, sir; this temple, like many an ill-built edifice, tumbles down before it is roofed in." In his triumph

"That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which in the shaft that made him

die

Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar SO high."

over the reverend antiquarian, he indulged himself in a conceit; for, some vestige of the altar of the goddess being much insisted on in support of the hypothesis, he said, "Mr. M'Queen is fighting pro aris et focis."

It was wonderful how well time passed in a remote castle, and in dreary weather. After supper, we talked of Pennant. It was objected that he was superficial. Dr. Johnson defended him warmly. He said, "Pennant has greater variety of inquiry than almost any man, and has told us more than perhaps one in ten thousand could have done, in the time that he took. He has not said what he was to tell; so you cannot find fault with him, for what he has not told. If a man comes to look for fishes, you cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls." "But, said Colonel M'Leod, he mentions the unreasonable rise of rents in the Highlands, and says, 'the gentlemen are for emptying the bag, without filling it;' for that is the phrase he uses. Why does he not tell how to fill it?" JOHNSON. "Sir, there is no end of negative criticism. He tells what he observes, and as much as he chooses. If he tells what is not true you may find fault with him; but though he tells that the land is not well cultivated, he is not obliged to tell how it may be well cultivated. If I tell that many of the Highlanders go bare-footed, I am not obliged to tell how they may get shoes. Pennant tells a fact. He need go no farther, except he pleases. He exhausts nothing; and no subject whatever has yet been exhausted. But Pennant has surely told a great deal. Here is a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is not seven." Notwithstanding this eloquent Oratio pro Pennantio, which they who have read this gentleman's "Tours," and recollect the Savage and the Shopkeeper at Monboddo, will probably impute to the spirit of contradiction, I still think that he had better have given more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number of imperfect accounts.

Saturday, 18th September.

Before breakfast, Dr. Johnson came up to my room, to forbid me to mention that this was his birth-day; but I told him I had done it already; at which he was displeased; I supposed from wishing to have nothing particular done on his account. Lady M'Leod and I got into a warm dispute. She wanted to build a house upon a farm

1 Johnson complained to Mrs. Thrale of "Boswell's troublesome kindness."

which she has taken, about five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other ornaments there; all of which I approved of; but insisted that the seat of the family should always be upon the rock of Dunvegan. JOHNSON. "Aye, in time we'll build all round this rock. You may make a very good house at the farm; but it must not be such as to tempt the Laird of M'Leod to go thither to reside. Most of the great families of England have a secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house: let this be of that kind." The lady insisted that the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made; that it must always be a rude place; that it was a Herculean labour to make a dinner here. I was vexed to find the alloy of modern refinement in a lady who had so much old family spirit. "Madam, said I, if once you quit this rock, there is no knowing where you may settle. You move five miles first;-then to St. Andrew's, as the late Laird did; then to Edinburgh ;-and so on, till you end at Hampstead, or in France. No, no; keep to the rock: it is the very jewel of the estate. It looks as if it had been let down from heaven by the four corners, to be the residence of a Chief. Have all the comforts and conveniencies of life upon it, but never leave Rorie More's cascade." "But, said she, is it not enough if we keep it? Must we never

have more convenience than Rorie More had? He had his beef brought to dinner in one basket, and his bread in another. Why not as well be Rorie More all over, as live upon his rock? And should not we tire, in looking perpetually on this rock? It is very well for you, who have a fine place, and every thing easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You would not live upon it yourself." "Yes, madam, said I; I would live upon it, were I Laird of M'Leod, and should be unhappy if I were not upon it." JOHNSON. (with a strong voice, and most determined manner,) "Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit; he would make his bed in the dungeon." I felt a degree of elation, at finding my resolute feudal enthusiasm thus confirmed by such a sanction. The lady was puzzled a little. She still returned to her pretty farm,-rich ground,-fine garden. "Madam, said Dr. Johnson, were they in Asia, I would not leave the rock." My opinion on this subject is still the same. An ancient family residence ought to be a primary object; and though the situation of Dunvegan be such that little can be done here in gardening, or pleasure-ground, yet, in addition to the veneration acquired by the lapse of time, it has many circumstances of natural

Second Edition.-Line 8: Read "let the new house be," &c.

grandeur suited to the seat of a Highland Chief: it has the sea,— islands, rocks, -hills,-a noble cascade; and when the family is again in opulence, something may be done by art.

Mr. Donald M'Queen went away to-day, in order to preach at Bracadale next day. We were so comfortably situated at Dunvegan, that Dr. Johnson could hardly be moved from it. I proposed to him that we should leave it on Monday. "No, sir, said he; I will not go before Wednesday. I will have some more of this good." However, as the weather was at this season so bad, and so very uncertain, and we had a great deal to do yet, Mr. M'Queen and I prevailed with him to agree to set out on Monday, if the day should be good. Mr. M'Queen, though it was inconvenient for him to be absent from his harvest, engaged to wait on Monday at Ulinish for us. When he was going away, Dr. Johnson said, "I shall ever retain a great regard for you." Then asked him if he had the "Rambler." Mr. M'Queen said, "No; but my brother has it.” JOHNSON. "Have you the 'Idler ?'" M'QUEEN. "No, sir." JOHNSON. "Then I will order one for you at Edinburgh, which you will keep in remembrance of me." Mr. M'Queen was much pleased with this. He expressed to me, in the strongest terms, his admiration of Dr. Johnson's wonderful knowledge, and every other quality for which he is distinguished. I asked Mr. M'Queen, if he was satisfied with being a minister in Sky. He said he was; but he owned that his forefathers having been so long there, and his having been born there, made a chief ingredient in forming his contentment. I should have mentioned, that, on our left hand, between Portree and Dr. M'Leod's house, Mr. M'Queen told me there had been a college of the Knights Templars; that tradition said so; and that there was a ruin remaining of their church which had been burnt but I confess Dr. Johnson has weakened my belief in remote tradition. In the dispute about Anaitis, Mr. M'Queen said, Asia Minor was peopled by Scythians, and, as they were the ancestors of the Celts, the same religion might be in Asia Minor and Sky. JOHNSON. "Alas! sir, what can a nation that has not letters tell of its original. I have always difficulty to be patient when I hear authours gravely quoted, as giving accounts of savage nations, which accounts they had from the savages themselves. What can the M'Craas tell about themselves a thousand years ago? 1 There

1 Sir Walter Scott answered this question in his pleasant style. "More than the doctor would suppose. I have a copy of their family history written in 1702. In this history they are averred to

have come over with the Fitzgeralds, now holding the name of Mackenzie, at the period of the battle of Largs in 1263."

is no tracing the connection of ancient nations, but by language; and therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations. If you find the same language in distant countries, you may be sure that the inhabitants of each have been the same people; that is to say, if you find the languages a good deal the same; for a word here and there being the same, will not do. Thus Butler, in his "Hudibras," remembering that Penguin, in the Straits of Magellan, signifies a bird with a white head, and that the same word has, in Wales, the signification of a white-headed wench, (pen head, and guin white,) by way of ridicule, concludes that the people of those Straits are Welch.

A young gentleman of the name of M'Lean, nephew to the Laird of the isle of Muck, came this morning; and, just as we sat down to dinner, came the Laird of the isle of Muck himself, his lady, sister to Talisker, two other ladies their relations, and a daughter of the late M'Leod of Hamer, who wrote a treatise on the second sight, under the designation of "Theophilus Insulanus." It was somewhat droll to hear this Laird called by his title. Muck would have sounded ill; so he was called Isle of Muck, which went off with great readiness. The name, as now written, is unseemly, but is not so bad in the original Erse, which is Mouach, signifying the Sow's Island. Buchanan calls it Insula Porcorum. It is so called from its form. Some call it Isle of Monk. The Laird insists that this is the proper name. It was formerly church-land belonging to Icolmkill, and a hermit lived in it. It is two miles long, and about three quarters of a mile broad. The Laird said he had seven score of souls upon it. Last year he had eighty persons inoculated, mostly children, but some of them eighteen years of age. He agreed with a surgeon to come and do it, at half a crown a head. It is very fertile in corn, of which they export some; and its coasts abound in fish. A taylor comes there six times in a year. They get a good blacksmith from the isle of Egg.

Sunday, 19th September.

It was rather worse weather than any that we had yet. At break fast Dr. Johnson said, "Some cunning men choose fools for their wives, thinking to manage them, but they always fail. There is a spaniel fool and a mule fool. The spaniel fool may be made to do by beating. The mule fool will neither do by words nor blows; and the spaniel fool often turns mule at last; and suppose a fool to

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