wish he had inquired more, before he ventured to say he even doubted of the possibility of such an unusual and useless deviation from all the known laws of nature. The notion of the second-sight I consider as a remnant of superstitious ignorance and credulity, which a philosopher will set down as such, till the contrary is clearly proved, and then it will be classed among the other certain, though unaccountable parts of our nature, like dreams, and - I do not know what.

In regard to the language, it has the merit of being all his own Many words of foreign extraction are used, where, I believe, common ones would do as weil, especially on familiar occasions. Yet I believe he could not express himself so forcibly in any other style. I am charmed with his researches concerning the Erse language, and the antiquity of their manuscripts I am quite convinced; and I shall rank Ossian, and his Fingals and Oscars, amongst the nursery tales, not the true history of our country, in all time to come.

"Upon the whole the book cannot displease, for it has no pretensions. The author neither says he is a geographer, nor an antiquarian, nor very learned in the history of Scotland, nor a naturalist, nor a fossilist. The manners of the people, and the face of the country, are all he attempts to describe, or seems to have thought of. Much were it to be wished that they who have travelled into more remote, and of course more curious, regions, had all possessed his good sense. Of the state of learning his observations on Glasgow university show he has formed a very sound judgment. He understands our climate too, and he has accurately observed the changes, however slow and imperceptible to us, which Scotland has undergone, in consequence of the blessings of liberty and internal peace. I could have drawn my pen through the story of the old woman at St. Andrew's, being the He has taken the only silly thing in the book. opportunity of ingrafting into the work several good observations, which I dare say he had made upon men and things before he set foot on Scotch ground, by which it is considerably enriched. A long journey, like a tall may-pole, though not very beautiful itself, yet is pretty enough when ornamented with flowers and garlands; it furnishes a sort of cloak-pins for hanging the furniture of your mind upon; and whoever sets out upon a journey, without furnishing his mind previously with much study and useful knowledge, erects a may-pole in December, and puts up very useless cloak-pins.

"I hope the book will induce many of his countrymen to make the same jaunt, and help to intermix the more liberal part of thein still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Scotch; who certainly would never have formed those combinations which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners. They would find us not deficient, at least in point

Mr. Orme, one of the ablest historians of this age, is of the same opinion. He said to me, "There are in that book thoughts which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished like pebbles rolled in the ocean."- BOSWELL.

* Every reader will, I am sure, join with me in warm

of hospitality, and they would be ashamed ever after to abuse us in the mass.

"So much for the Tour. I have now, for the first time in my life, passed a winter in the country; and never did three months roll on with more swiftness and satisfaction. I used not only to wonder at, but pity, those whose lot condemned them to winter any where but in either of the capitals. But every place has its charms to a cheerful mind. I am busy planting and taking measures for opening the summer campaign in farming; and I find I have an excellent resource, when revolutions in politics perhaps, and revolutions of the sun for certain, will make it decent for me to retreat behind the ranks of the more forward in life.

"I am glad to hear the last was a very busy week with you. I see you as counsel in some causes which must have opened a charming field for your humorous vein. As it is more uncommon, so I verily believe it is more useful than the more serious exercise of reason; and, to a man who is to appear in public, more eclat is to be gained, sometimes more money too, by a bon-mot, than a learned speech. It is the fund of natural humour which Lord North possesses, that makes him so much the favourite of the house, and so able, because so amiable, a leader of a party.

"I have now finished my Tour of Seven Pages. In what remains, I beg leave to offer my compli ments, and those of ma très chère femme, to you and Mrs. Boswell. Pray unbend the busy brow, and frolic a little in a letter to, my dear Boswell, your affectionate friend, GEORGE DEMPSTER." 1

I shall also present the public with a correspondence with the laird of Rasay, concerning a passage in the "Journey to the Western Islands," which shows Dr. Johnson in a very amiable light.

RASAY TO BOSWELL.

“Rasay, April 10. 1775. "DEAR SIR, - I take this occasion of returning you my most hearty thanks for the civilities shown to my daughter by you and Mrs. Boswell. Yet, though she has informed me that I am under this obligation, I should very probably have deferred troubling you with making my acknowledgments at present, if I had not seen Dr. Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Isles,' in which he has been pleased to make a very friendly mention of my family, for which I am surely obliged to him, as being more than an equivalent for the reception you and he met with. Yet there is one paragraph I should have been glad he had omitted, which I am sure was owing to misinformation; that is, that I had acknowledged Macleod to be my chief, though my ancestors disputed the pre-eminence for a long tract of time.

"I never had occasion to enter seriously on this

argument with the present laird, or his grandfather,

admiration of the truly patriotic writer of this letter. I knew not which most to applaud that good sense and liberal ty of mind which could see and admit the defects of bis native country, to which no man is a more realous friend; or that candour which induced him to give just praise to the minister whom he honestly and strenuously opposed. - BosWELL.

"I beg you all to forgive an undesigned and involuntary injury, and to consider me as, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." I

It would be improper for me to boast of my own labours; but I cannot refrain from publishing such praise as I received from such a man as Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, after the perusal of the original manuscript of my Journal.

SIR W. FORBES TO BOSWELL.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"Edinburgh, March 7. 1777. I ought to have thanked you sooner for your very obliging letter, and for the singular confidence you are pleased to place in me, when you trust me with such a curious and valuable deposit as the papers you have sent me. Be assured I have a due sense of this favour, and shall faithfully and carefully return them to you. You may rely that I shall neither copy any part, nor permit the papers to be seen.

"They contain a curious picture of society, and form a journal on the most instructive plan that can possibly be thought of; for I am not sure that an ordinary observer would become so well acquainted either with Dr. Johnson, or with the manners of the Hebrides, by a personal intercourse, as by a perusal of your Journal. I am very truly,

dear Sir, &c.,

WILLIAM FORBES.".

When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns," I feel an impression at once awful and tender.— Requiescant in pace!

It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I repeat the answer which I made to that friend: "Few, very few, need be afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge,

1 Rasay was highly gratified, and afterwards visited and dined with Dr. Johnson, at his house in London. BOSWELL.

Johnson gives Mrs. Thrale the following account of this affair:

"I have offended; and what is stranger, have justly offended, the nation of Rasay. If they could come hither, they would be as fierce as the Americans. Rasay has written to Boswell an account of the injury done him by representing his house as subordinate to that of Dunvegan. Boswell has his letter, and, I believe, copied my auswer. I have appeased him, if a degraded chief can possibly be appeased: but it will be thirteen days-days of resentment and discontentbefore my recantation can reach him. Many a dirk will imagination, during that interval, fix in my heart. I really question if at this time my life would not be in danger, if distance did not secure it. Boswell will find his way to Streatham before he goes, and will detail this great affair."Letters, 12th May, 1775.- CROKER.

2 In justice both to Sir William Forbes and myself, it is proper to mention, that the papers which were submitted to his perusal contained only an account of our Tour from the time that Dr. Johnson and I set out from Edinburgh, and consequently did not contain the eulogium on Sir William Forbes (p. 271.), which he never saw till this book appeared in print; nor did he even know, when he wrote the above letter, that this Journal was to be published. - BOSWELL.

because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the BON CHRETIEN?"

On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised. To it we owe all those interesting apophthegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus have transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining collections which the French have made under the title of " Ana," affixed to some celebrated name. To it we owe the "TableTalk" of Selden, the "Conversation" between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's "Anecdotes of Pope," and other valuable remains in our own language. How delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of Shakspeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely any thing but their admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known their petty habits, their characteristic manners, their modes of composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their contem poraries! All these are now irrecoverably lost. Considering how many of the strongest and most brilliant effusions of exalted intellect regretted that all men of distinguished wisdom must have perished, how much is it to be and wit have not been attended by friends, of taste enough to relish, and abilities enough to register their conversation:

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."

They whose inferior exertions are recorded, as serving to explain or illustrate the sayings of such men, may be proud of being thus associated, and of their names being transmitted to posterity, by being appended to an illustrious character.

Before I conclude, I think it proper to say, that I have suppressed every thing which I thought could really hurt any one now living.

3"Before great Agamemnon reign'd,

Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave,
Whose huge ambition's now contain'd
In the small compass of a grave;
In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown;
No bard had they to make all time their own."
Hor. Od. iv. 9. Francis.- CROKEL.

4 Having found, on a revision of the first edition of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me, which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the subsequent editions. I was pleased to find that they did not amount in the whole to a page. If any of the same kind are yet left, it is owing to inadvertence alone, no man being more unwilling to give pain to others than I am. A contemptible scribbler, of whom

have learned no more than that, after having disgraced and deserted the clerical character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely asserted that the passages omitted were defamatory, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory. The last insinuation I took the trouble publicly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in " the lie o'erthrown." As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting

Vanity and self-conceit indeed may sometimes suffer. With respect to what is related, I considered it my duty to "extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice;" and with those lighter strokes of Dr. Johnson's satire, proceeding from a warmth and quickness of imagination, not from any malevolence of heart, and which, on account of their excellence, could not be omitted, I trust that they who are the subject of them have good sense and good temper enough not to be displeased.

I have only to add, that I shall ever reflect with great pleasure on a Tour, which has been the means of preserving so much of the enlightened and instructive conversation of one whose virtues will, I hope, ever be an object of imitation, and whose powers of mind were so extraordinary, that ages may revolve before such a man shall again appear.

His stay in Scotland was from the 18th of August, on which day he arrived, till the 22d of November, when he set out on his return to London; and I believe ninety-four days were never passed by any man in a more vigorous exertion. He came by the way of Berwickupon-Tweed to Edinburgh, where he remained a few days, and then went by St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, Inverness, and Fort Augustus, to the Hebrides, to visit which was the principal object he had in view. He visited the isles of Sky, Rasay, Col, Mull, Inchkenneth, and Icolmkill. He travelled through Argyleshire by Inverary, and from thence by Lochlomond and Dunbarton to Glasgow, then by Loudon to Auchinleck in Ayrshire, the seat of my family, and then by Hamilton, back to Edinburgh, where he again spent some time.

He thus saw the four universities of Scotland, its three principal cities, and as much of

it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other will find that the passages omitted were not in the least degree of that nature, but exactly such as I have represented them in the former part of this note, the hasty effusion of momentary feelings which the delicacy of politeness should have suppressed. BOSWELL.

I believe the scribbler alluded to was William Thompson, anthor of The Man in the Moon, and other satirical novels, half clever, half crazy kind of works. He was once a member of the kirk of Scotland, but being deposed by the presbytery of Auchterarder, became an author of all works in London, and could seldom finish a work, on whatever subject, without giving a slap by the way to that same presbytery with the unpronounceable name. Boswell's denial of having retracted upon compulsion refutes what was said by Peter Pindar and others about "M'Donald's rage."-WALTER SCOTT. See antè, p. 312. n. 1. et seq.-C.

the Highland and insular life as was sufficient for his philosophical contemplation. I had the pleasure of accompanying him during the whole of his journey.

He was respectfully entertained by the great, the learned, and the elegant, wherever he went; nor was he less delighted with the hospitality which he experienced in humbler life.'

His various adventures, and the force and vivacity of his mind, as exercised during this peregrination, upon innumerable topics, have been faithfully, and to the best of my abilities, displayed in my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," to which, as the public has been pleased to honour it by a very extensive circulation, I beg leave to refer, as to a separate and remarkable portion of his life, which may be there seen in detail, and which exhibits as striking a view of his powers in conversation, as his works do of his excellence in writing. Nor can I deny to myself the very flattering gratification of inserting here the character which my friend Mr. Courtenay has been pleased to give of that work:

"With Reynolds' pencil, vivid, bold, and true,
So fervent Boswell gives him to our view:
In every trait we see his mind expand;
The master rises by the pupil's hand :
We love the writer, praise his happy vein,
Graced with the naïveté of the sage Montaigne;
Hence not alone are brighter parts display'd,
But e'en the specks of character pourtray'd:
We see the Rambler with fastidious smile
Mark the lone tree, and note the heath-clad isle;
But when the heroic tale of Flora' charms,
Deck'd in a kilt, he wields a chieftain's arms;
The tuneful piper sounds a martial strain,
And Samuel sings, The king shall have his
ain.'"

During his stay at Edinburgh, after his return from the Hebrides, he was at great pains to obtain information concerning Scotland; and it will appear from his subsequent letters, that he was not less solicitous for intelligence on this subject after his return to London.

JOHNSON TO BOSWELL.

He was long remembered amongst the lower orders of Hebrideans by the title of the Sassenach More, the big Englishman.-WALTER SCOTT.

2 A collation of the original MS., lately in the possession of the Rev. Archdeacon Butler, of Shrewsbury, but now in the British Museum, has confirmed some conjectural emendations which I had made on Mr. Duppa's text, and has supplied other corrections and additions.-CROKER, 1835.

3 The celebrated Flora Macdonald. COURTENAY. 4 In this he showed a very acute penetration. My wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention while he was our guest; so that I wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady. Besides, she had not that

BOSWELL TO JOHNSON.

"Edinburgh, Dec. 2. 1773.

"You shall have what information I can procure as to the order of the clans. A gentle

man of the name of Grant tells me that there is no settled order among them; and he says that the Macdonalds were not placed upon the right of the army at Culloden; the Stuarts were. I shall, however, examine witnesses of every name that I can find here. Dr. Webster shall be quickened too. I like your little memorandums; they are symptoms of your being in earnest with your book of northern travels.

"Your box shall be sent next week by sea. You will find in it some pieces of the broom-bush which you saw growing on the old castle of Auchinleck. The wood has a curious appearance when sawn You may either have a little writingstandish made of it, or get it formed into boards for a treatise on witcheraft, by way of a suitable binding."

across.

BOSWELL TO JOHNSON.

Edinburgh, Dec. 18. 1773.

"You promised me an inscription for a print to be taken from an historical picture of Mary Queen of Scots being forced to resign her crown, which Mr. Hamilton at Rome has painted for me. 5 The two following have been sent to me:“Maria Scotorum Regina meliori seculo digna, jus regium civibus seditiosis invita resignat."

Cives seditiosi Mariam Scotorum Reginam sese muneri abdicare invitam cogunt.'

"Be so good as to read the passage in Robertson, and see if you cannot give me a better inscription. I must have it both in Latin and English; so, if you should not give me another Latin one, you

high admiration of him which was felt by most of those who knew him; and, what was very natural to a female mind, she thought he had too much influence over her husband. She once, in a little warmth, made, with more point than justice, this remark upon that subject:-"I have seen many a bear led by a man; but I never before saw a man led by a bear." -BOSWELL. The reader will, however, hereafter see that the repetition of this observation as to Mrs. Boswell's feelings towards him was made more frequently and pertinaciously, than is quite consistent with good taste and good manners. -CROKER.

1 Sir Alexander Gordon, one of the professors at Aberdeen. - BOSWELL.

2 This was a box containing a number of curious things which he had picked up in Scotland, particularly some hornspoons. BOSWELL.

3 The Macdonalds always laid claim to be placed on the right of the whole clans, and those of that tribe assign the breach of this order at Culloden as one cause of the loss of the day. The Macdonalds, placed on the left wing, refused to charge, and positively left the field unassailed and unbroken. Lord George Murray in vain endeavoured to urge them on by saying, that their behaviour would make the left the right, and that he himself would take the name of Macdonald. On this subject there are some curious notices, in a very interesting journal written by one of the seven men of Moidart, as they were called-Macdonalds of the Clanronald

will at least choose the best of these two, and send

a translation of it."

His humane forgiving disposition was put to a pretty strong test on his return to London, by a liberty which Mr. Thomas Davies had taken with him in his absence, which was, to publish two volumes entitled "Miscellaneous and Fugitive Pieces," which he advertised in the newspapers, "By the Author of the Rambler." In this collection, several of Dr. Johnson's acknowledged writings, several of his anonymous performances, and some which he had written for others, were inserted; but there were also some in which he had no concern whatever. He was at first very angry, as he had good reason to be. But, upon consideration of his poor friend's narrow circumstances, and that he had only a little profit in view, and meant no harm, he soon relented, and continued his kindness to him as formerly.6

In the course of his self-examination with retrospect to this year, he seems to have been much dejected; for he says, 1st January, 1774: "This year has passed with so little improvement, that I doubt whether I have not rather impaired than increased my learning." And yet we have seen how he read, and we know how he talked, during that period.

sept, who were the first who declared for the prince at his landing in their chief's country. It is in the Lockhart papers, vol. ii. p. 510. — WALTER SCOTT. The Rev. Dr. Alexander Webster, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, a man of distinguished abilities, who had premised him information concerning the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL. See ante, p. 279.-C.

Gavin Hamilton, long a resident in Rome, and a painter of some reputation in his day. He died in 1797. The picture which Boswell speaks of was exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1776, and is described in the catalogue as "No. 124. Gavia Hamilton, Rome; Mary Queen of Scots resigning ber Crown."-P. CUNNINGHAM.

6" When Davies printed the Fugitive Pieces without his knowledge or consent; How,' said I, would Pope have raved, had he been served so ?* We should never,' replied Johnson, have heard the last on't, to be sure; but then Pope was a narrow man. I will, however,' added he,' storm and bluster myself a little this time;'- so went to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his return, I asked how the affair ended:- Why,' said he, 'I was a fierce fellow, and pretended to be very angry, and Thomas was a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be very surry; so there the matter ended. I believe the dog loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale (turning round to my husband), what shall you and I do that is good for Tom Davies? We will do some thing for him, to be sure.""-Piozzi.-CROKER.