Chapter 23

'Why rather sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee.' &c.2Henry IV.act iii. sc. 1.

[437]Spain, in 1719, sent a strong force under the Duke of Ormond to Scotland in behalf of the Chevalier. Owing to storms only a few hundred men landed. These were joined by a large body of Highlanders, but being attacked by General Wightman, the clansmen dispersed and the Spaniards surrendered. Smollett'sEngland, ed. 1800, ii. 382.

[438]Boswell mentions thisante, i. 41, as a proof of Johnson's 'perceptive quickness.'

[439]Dr. Johnson, in hisJourney, thus beautifully describes his situation here:—'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head; but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either side, were high hills, which, by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour well, I know not; for here I first conceived the thought of this narration.' TheCritical Reviewers, with a spirit and expression worthy of the subject, say,—'We congratulate the publick on the event with which this quotation concludes, and are fully persuaded that the hour in which the entertaining traveller conceived this narrative will be considered, by every reader of taste, as a fortunate event in the annals of literature. Were it suitable to the task in which we are at present engaged, to indulge ourselves in a poetical flight, we would invoke the winds of the Caledonian Mountains to blow for ever, with their softest breezes, on the bank where our author reclined, and request of Flora, that it might be perpetually adorned with the gayest and most fragrant productions of the year.' BOSWELL. Johnson thus described the scene to Mrs. Thrale:—'I sat down to take notes on a green bank, with a small stream running at my feet, in the midst of savage solitude, with mountains before me and on either hand covered with heath. I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected, but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be put in motion.'Piozzi Letters, i. 131.

[440]'The villagers gathered about us in considerable numbers, I believe without any evil intention, but with a very savage wildness of aspect and manner.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 38.

[441]The M'Craas, or Macraes, were since that time brought into the king's army, by the late Lord Seaforth. When they lay in Edinburgh Castle in 1778, and were ordered to embark for Jersey, they with a number of other men in the regiment, for different reasons, but especially an apprehension that they were to be sold to the East-India Company, though enlisted not to be sent out of Great-Britain without their own consent, made a determined mutiny, and encamped upon the lofty mountain,Arthur's seat, where they remained three days and three nights; bidding defiance to all the force in Scotland. At last they came down, and embarked peaceably, having obtained formal articles of capitulation, signed by Sir Adolphus Oughton, commander in chief, General Skene, deputy commander, the Duke of Buccleugh, and the Earl of Dunmore, which quieted them. Since the secession of the Commons of Rome to theMons Sacer, a more spirited exertion has not been made. I gave great attention to it from first to last, and have drawn up a particular account of it. Those brave fellows have since served their country effectually at Jersey, and also in the East-Indies, to which, after being better informed, they voluntarily agreed to go. BOSWELL. The line which Boswell quotes is fromThe Chevalier's Muster Roll:—

'The laird of M'Intosh is coming,M'Crabie & M'Donald's coming,M'Kenzie & M'Pherson's coming,And the wild M'Craw's coming.Little wat ye wha's coming,Donald Gun and a's coming.'Hogg'sJacobite Relics, i. 152.

Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 198) writing on May 9, 1779, tells how on May 1 'the French had attempted to land [on Jersey], but Lord Seaforth's new-raised regiment of 700 Highlanders, assisted by some militia and some artillery, made a brave stand and repelled the intruders.'

[442]'One of the men advised her, with the cunning that clowns never can be without, to ask more; but she said that a shilling was enough. We gave her half a crown, and she offered part of it again.'Piozzi Letters, i. 133.

[443]Of this part of the journey Johnson wrote:—'We had very little entertainment as we travelled either for the eye or ear. There are, I fancy, no singing birds in the Highlands.'Piozzi Letters, i. 135. It is odd that he should have looked for singing birds on the first of September.

[444]Act iii. sc. 4.

[445]It is amusing to observe the different images which this being presented to Dr. Johnson and me. The Doctor, in hisJourney, compares him to a Cyclops. BOSWELL. 'Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.'Works, ix. 44. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed where one of us was to lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be got'.Piozzi Letters, i, 136. Macaulay (Essays, ed. 1843, i. 404) says: 'It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which theJourney to the Hebridesis the translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions.' Macaulay thereupon quotes these two passages. Seeante, under Aug. 29, 1783.

[446]'We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with my supper.'Piozzi Letters, i, 136. Goldsmith, who in his student days had been in Scotland, thus writes of a Scotch inn:—'Vile entertainment is served up, complained of, and sent down; up comes worse, and that also is changed, and every change makes our wretched cheer more unsavoury.'Present State of Polite Learning, ch. 12.

[447]General Wolfe, in his letter from Head-quarters on Sept. 2, 1759, eleven days before his death wrote:—'In this situation there is such a choice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss how to determine.'Ann. Reg.1759, p. 246.

[448]Seeante, p. 89.

[449]Seeante, ii. 169, note 2.

[450]Boswell, in a note that he added to the second edition (seepost, end of theJournal), says that he has omitted 'a few observations the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum,' In the first edition (p. 165) the next three paragraphs were as follows:—'Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, and a festive entertainment, we had a small company, and cannot boast of our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my Journal, but I shall not trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend Sir Thomas (Wentworth) Blacket, Lady Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon being asked by him if the punch-bowl then upon the table was not a very handsome one, replied, "Yes—if it were full." 'Sir Alexander Macdonald having been an Eton scholar, Dr. Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was much diminished when he beheld him in the isle of Sky, where we heard heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. Dr. Johnson said, "It grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear to such disadvantage. This gentleman has talents, nay some learning; but he is totally unfit for this situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen. A strong-minded man, like his brother Sir James, may be improved by an English education; but in general they will be tamed into insignificance." 'I meditated an escape from this house the very next day; but Dr. Johnson resolved that we should weather it out till Monday.' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast. A boat was procured, and we launched into one of the straits of the Atlantick Ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where —— —— resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified... Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.'Piozzi Letters, i. 137. A little later he wrote:—'I have done thinking of —— whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony, and given occasion to so many stories, that —— has some thoughts of collecting them, and making a novel of his life.'Ib. p. 198. The last of Rowlandson'sCaricaturesof Boswell'sJournalis entitledRevising for the Second Edition. Macdonald is represented as seizing Boswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to theJournalthat lies open at pages 168, 169. On the ground lie pages 165, 167, torn out. Boswell, in an agony of fear, is begging for mercy.

[451]

'Here, in Badenoch, here in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, inKnoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him.'Clough'sBothie, p. 125

[452]See his Latin verses addressed to Dr. Johnson, in this APPENDIX. BOSWELL.

[453]Seeante, ii. 157.

[454]Seeante, i. 449.

[455]Seeante, ii. 99.

[456]Seeante, iii 198, note 1.

[457]'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation, that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation knows less as he hears more.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 47. 'They are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false. Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the result of his investigations was, that the answer to the second question was commonly such as nullified the answer to the first.'Ib., p. 114.

[458]Mr. Carruthers, in his edition of Boswell'sHebrides, says (p. xiv):—'The new management and high rents took the tacksmen, or larger tenants, by surprise. They were indignant at the treatment they received, and selling off their stock they emigrated to America. In the twenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailed from the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containing about 6400 persons, who carried with them in specie at least £38,400. A desperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of Lord Macdonald. They bound themselves by a solemn oath not to offer for any farm that might become vacant. The combination failed of its object, but it appeared so formidable in the eyes of the "English-bred chieftain," that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwards returned.'

[459]Dr. Johnson seems to have forgotten that a Highlander going armed at this period incurred the penalty of serving as a common soldier for the first, and of transportation beyond sea for a second offence. And as for 'calling out his clan,' twelve Highlanders and a bagpipe made a rebellion. WALTER SCOTT.

[460]Mackintosh (Lifeii. 62) says that in Mme. du Deffand'sCorrespondencethere is 'an extraordinary confirmation of the talents and accomplishments of our Highland Phoenix, Sir James Macdonald. A Highland chieftain, admired by Voltaire, could have been no ordinary man.'

[461]This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute particulars concerning him must be interesting to many. I shall therefore insert his two last letters to his mother, Lady Margaret Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me. 'Rome, July 9th, 1766. 'My DEAR MOTHER, 'Yesterday's post brought me your answer to the first letter in which I acquainted you of my illness. Your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same I have always experienced, and to which I have often owed my life. Indeed it never was in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle. I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to give you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; but I must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak and miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician. My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomach will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time. So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed;—I only recover slower than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of it is a dose of physick, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I am not able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, and remain always 'Your most sincerely affectionate son, 'J. MACDONALD.' He grew gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as follows from Frescati:—'MY DEAR MOTHER, 'Though I did not mean to deceive you in my last letter from Rome, yet certainly you would have very little reason to conclude of the very great and constant danger I have gone through ever since that time. My life, which is still almost entirely desperate, did not at that time appear to me so, otherwise I should have represented, in its true colours, a fact which acquires very little horror by that means, and comes with redoubled force by deception. There is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I have not had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight; during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death, with as much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admit of. In case of the worst, the Abbé Grant will be my executor in this part of the world, and Mr. Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has been to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as possible.' BOSWELL. Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 291), in 1779, thus mentions this 'younger brother':—'Macdonald abused Lord North in very gross, yet too applicable, terms; and next day pleaded he had been drunk, recanted, and was all admiration and esteem for his Lordship's talents and virtues.'

[462]Seeante, iii. 85, andpost, Oct. 28.

[463]Cheyne's English Malady, ed. 1733, p. 229.

[464]'Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.'Hamlet, act i. sc. 2. Seeante, iii. 350, where Boswell is reproached by Johnson with 'bringing in gabble,' when he makes this quotation.

[465]VARIOUS READINGS. Line 2. In the manuscript, Dr. Johnson, instead ofrupibus obsita, had writtenimbribus uvida, anduvida nubibus, but struck them both out. Lines 15 and 16. Instead of these two lines, he had written, but afterwards struck out, the following:—

Parare posse, utcunque jactetGrandiloquus nimis alta Zeno.

BOSWELL. In Johnson'sWorks, i. 167, these lines are given with some variations, which perhaps are in part due to Mr. Langton, who, we are told (ante, Dec. 1784), edited some, if not indeed all, of Johnson's Latin poems.

[466]Cowper wrote to S. Rose on May 20, 1789:—'Browne was an entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before; this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much.' Southey'sCowper, vi. 237. HisDe Animi Immortalitatewas published in 1754. He died in 1760, aged fifty-four. Seeante, ii. 339.

[467]Boswell, in one of hisHypochondriacks(ante, iv. 179) says:—'I do fairly acknowledge that I love Drinking; that I have a constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and that if it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am afraid I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man.... Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. Were we so framed that it were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep ourselves for ever gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking would be thesummum bonum, the chief good, to find out which philosophers have been so variously busied. But we know from humiliating experience that men cannot be kept long in a state of elevated drunkenness.'

[468]That my readers may have my narrative in the style of the country through which I am travelling, it is proper to inform them, that the chief of a clan is denominated by hissurnamealone, as M'Leod, M'Kinnon, M'lntosh. To prefixMr.to it would be a degradation fromtheM'Leod, &c. My old friend, the Laird of M'Farlane, the great antiquary, took it highly amiss, when General Wade called him Mr. M'Farlane. Dr. Johnson said, he could not bring himself to use this mode of address; it seemed to him to be too familiar, as it is the way in which, in all other places, intimates or inferiors are addressed. When the chiefs havetitlesthey are denominated by them, asSir James Grant,Sir Allan M'Lean. The other Highland gentlemen, of landed property, are denominated by theirestates, asRasay,Boisdale; and the wives of all of them have the title ofladies. Thetacksmen, or principal tenants, are named by their farms, asKingsburgh,Corrichatachin; and their wives are called themistressof Kingsburgh, themistressof Corrichatachin.—Having given this explanation, I am at liberty to use that mode of speech which generally prevails in the Highlands and the Hebrides. BOSWELL.

[469]Seeante, iii. 275.

[470]Boswell implies that Sir A. Macdonald's table had not been furnished plentifully. Johnson wrote:—'At night we came to a tenant's house of the first rank of tenants, where we were entertained better than at the landlord's.'Piozzi Letters, i. 141.

[471]'Little did I once think,' he wrote to her the same day, 'of seeing this region of obscurity, and little did you once expect a salutation from this verge of European life. I have now the pleasure of going where nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees.'Piozzi Letters, i. 120. About fourteen years since, I landed in Sky, with a party of friends, and had the curiosity to ask what was the first idea on every one's mind at landing. All answered separately that it was this Ode. WALTER SCOTT.

[472]See Appendix B.

[473]'I never was in any house of the islands, where I did not find books in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 50. He is speaking of 'the higher rank of the Hebridians,' for on p. 61 he says:—'The greater part of the islanders make no use of books.'

[474]There was a Mrs. Brooks, an actress, the daughter of a Scotchman named Watson, who had forfeited his property by 'going out in the '45.' But according toThe Thespian Dictionaryher first appearance on the stage was in 1786.

[475]Boswell mentions,post, Oct. 5, 'the famous Captain of Clanranald, who fell at Sherrif-muir.'

[476]Seeante, p. 95.

[477]By John Macpherson, D.D. Seepost, Sept. 13.

[478]Sir Walter Scott, when in Sky in 1814, wrote:—'We learn that most of the Highland superstitions, even that of the second sight, are still in force.' Lockhart'sScott, ed. 1839, iv. 305. See.ante, ii. 10, 318.

[479]Of him Johnson wrote:—'One of the ministers honestly told me that he came to Sky with a resolution not to believe it.'Works, ix. 106.

[480]'By the termsecond sightseems to be meant a mode of seeing superadded to that which nature generally bestows. In the Erse it is calledTaisch; which signifies likewise a spectre or a vision.'Johnson's Works, ix. 105.

[481]Gray'sOde on a distant prospect of Eton College, 1. 44.

[482]A tonnage bounty of thirty shillings a ton was at this time given to the owners of busses or decked vessels for the encouragement of the white herring fishery. Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, iv. 5) shews how mischievous was its effect.

[483]The Highland expression for Laird of Rasay. BOSWELL.

[484]'In Sky I first observed the use of brogues, a kind of artless shoes, stitched with thongs so loosely, that, though they defend the foot from stones, they do not exclude water.' Johnson'sWorks, ix 46.

[485]To evade the law against the tartan dress, the Highlanders used to dye their variegated plaids and kilts into blue, green, or any single colour. WALTER SCOTT.

[486]Seepost, Oct. 5.

[487]The Highlanders were all well inclined to the episcopalian form,provisothat the rightkingwas prayed for. I suppose Malcolm meant to say, 'I will come to your church because you are honest folk,' viz.Jacobites. WALTER SCOTT.

[488]Seeante, i. 450, and ii. 291.

[489]Perhaps he was thinking of Johnson's letter of June 20, 1771 (ante, ii. 140), where he says:—'I hope the time will come when we may try our powers both with cliffs and water.'

[490]'The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancing agitation.'Piozzi Letters, i. 142. 'The water was calm and the rowers were vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 54.

[491]

'Caught in the wild Aegean seas,The sailor bends to heaven for ease.'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2,Odes, xvi. 1.

[492]Seeante, iv. Dec. 9, 1784, note.

[493]Such spells are still believed in. A lady of property in Mull, a friend of mine, had a few years since much difficulty in rescuing from the superstitious fury of the people, an old woman, who used acharmto injure her neighbour's cattle. It is now in my possession, and consists of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and such like trash, wrapt in a lump of clay. WALTER SCOTT.

[494]Sir Walter Scott, writing in Skye in 1814, says:—'Macleod and Mr. Suter have both heard a tacksman of Macleod's recite the celebrated Address to the Sun; and another person repeat the description of Cuchullin's car. But all agree as to the gross infidelity of Macpherson as a translator and editor.' Lockhart'sScott, iv. 308.

[495]Seepost, Nov. 10.

[496]'The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest-song, in which all their voices were united.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 58.

[497]'The money which he raises annually by rent from all his dominions, which contain at least 50,000 acres, is not believed to exceed £250; but as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sells every year great numbers of cattle ... The wine circulates vigorously, and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always at hand.'Piozzi Letters, i. 142. 'Of wine and punch they are very liberal, for they get them cheap; but as there is no custom-house on the island, they can hardly be considered as smugglers.'Ib. p. 160. 'Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impost is obtained here at an easy rate.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 52.

[498]'No man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they call askalk.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. p. 51.

[499]Alexander Macleod, of Muiravenside, advocate, became extremely obnoxious to government by his zealous personal efforts to engage his chief Macleod, and Macdonald of Sky, in the Chevalier's attempts of 1745. Had he succeeded, it would have added one third at least to the Jacobite army. Boswell has oddly describedM'Cruslick, the being whose name was conferred upon this gentleman, as something between Proteus and Don Quixote. It is the name of a species of satyr, oresprit follet, a sort of mountain Puck or hobgoblin, seen among the wilds and mountains, as the old Highlanders believed, sometimes mirthful, sometimes mischievous. Alexander Macleod's precarious mode of life and variable spirits occasioned thesoubriquet. WALTER SCOTT.

[500]Johnson also complained of the cheese. 'In the islands they do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful odours with the fragrance of the tea.'Works, ix. 52.

[501]'The estate has not, during four hundred years, gained or lost a single acre.'Ib. p. 55.

[502]Lord Stowell told me, that on the road from Newcastle to Berwick, Dr. Johnson and he passed a cottage, at the entrance of which were set up two of those great bones of the whale, which are not unfrequently seen in maritime districts. Johnson expressed great horror at the sight of these bones; and called the people, who could use such relics of mortality as an ornament, mere savages. CROKER.

[503]In like manner Boswell wrote:—'It is divinely cheering to me to think that there is a Cathedral so near Auchinleck [as Carlisle].'Ante, iii. 416.

[504]'It is not only in Rasay that the chapel is unroofed and useless; through the few islands which we visited we neither saw nor heard of any house of prayer, except in Sky, that was not in ruins. The malignant influence of Calvinism has blasted ceremony and decency together... It has been for many years popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the Romish clergy; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches we may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid activity of those who suffer them to fall.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 61. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'By the active zeal of Protestant devotion almost all the chapels have sunk into ruin.'Piozzi Letters, i. 152.

[505]'Not many years ago,' writes Johnson, 'the late Laird led out one hundred men upon a military expedition.'Works, ix. 59. What the expedition was he is careful not to state.

[506]'I considered this rugged ascent as the consequence of a form of life inured to hardships, and therefore not studious of nice accommodations. But I know not whether for many ages it was not considered as a part of military policy to keep the country not easily accessible. The rocks are natural fortifications.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. p. 54.

[507]SeepostSept. 17.

[508]In Sky a price was set 'upon the heads of foxes, which, as the number was diminished, has been gradually raised from three shillings and sixpence to a guinea, a sum so great in this part of the world, that, in a short time, Sky may be as free from foxes as England from wolves. The fund for these rewards is a tax of sixpence in the pound, imposed by the farmers on themselves, and said to be paid with great willingness.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 57.

[509]Boswell means that the eastern coast of Sky is westward of Rasay. CROKER.

[510]'The Prince was hidden in his distress two nights in Rasay, and the King's troops burnt the whole country, and killed some of the cattle. You may guess at the opinions that prevail in this country; they are, however, content with fighting for their King; they do not drink for him. We had no foolish healths',Piozzi Letters, i. 145.

[511]Seeante, iv. 217, where he said:—'You have, perhaps, no man who knows as much Greek and Latin as Bentley.'

[512]Seeante, ii. 61, andpost, Oct. 1.

[513]Seeante, i. 268, note 1.

[514]Steele had had the Duke of Marlborough's papers, and 'in some of his exigencies put them in pawn. They then remained with the old Duchess, who, in her will, assigned the task to Glover [the author ofLeonidas] and Mallet, with a reward of a thousand pounds, and a prohibition to insert any verses. Glover rejected, I suppose with disdain, the legacy, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet; who had from the late Duke of Marlborough a pension to promote his industry, and who talked of the discoveries which he had made; but left not, when he died, any historical labours behind him.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 466. The Duchess died in 1744 and Mallet in 1765. For more than twenty years he thus imposed more or less successfully on the world. About the year 1751 he played on Garrick's vanity. 'Mallet, in a familiar conversation with Garrick, discoursing of the diligence which he was then exerting upon theLife of Marlborough, let him know, that in the series of great men quickly to be exhibited, he shouldfind a nichefor the hero of the theatre. Garrick professed to wonder by what artifice he could be introduced; but Mallet let him know, that by a dexterous anticipation he should fix him in a conspicuous place. "Mr. Mallet," says Garrick in his gratitude of exultation, "have you left off to write for the stage?" Mallet then confessed that he had a drama in his hands. Garrick promised to act it; andAlfredwas produced.'Ib. p. 465. Seeante, iii. 386.

[515]According to Dr. Warton (Essay on Pope, ii. 140) he received £5000. 'Old Marlborough,' wrote Horace Walpole in March, 1742 (Letters, i. 139), 'has at last published herMemoirs; they are digested by one Hooke, who wrote a Roman history; but from her materials, which are so womanish that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and petticoat with them.'

[516]Seeante, i. 153

[517]'Hooke,' says Dr. Warton (Essay on Pope, ii. 141), 'was a Mystic and a Quietist, and a warm disciple of Fénelon. It was he who brought a Catholic priest to take Pope's confession on his death-bed.'

[518]See Cumberland'sMemoirs, i. 344.

[519]Mr. Croker says that 'though he sold a great tract of land in Harris, he left at his death in 1801 the original debt of £50,000 [Boswell says £40,000] increased to £70,000.' When Johnson visited Macleod at Dunvegan, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'Here, though poor Macleod had been left by his grandfather overwhelmed with debts, we had another exhibition of feudal hospitality. There were two stags in the house, and venison came to the table every day in its various forms. Macleod, besides his estate in Sky, larger I suppose than some English counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and of his isles uninhabited I doubt if he very exactly knows the number, I told him that he was a mighty monarch. Such dominions fill an Englishman with envious wonder; but when he surveys the naked mountain, and treads the quaking moor; and wanders over the wild regions of gloomy barrenness, his wonder may continue, but his envy ceases. The unprofitableness of these vast domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances. The heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me how wealthy he should be if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate which the surveyor reports to contain 80,000 acres, rented at £600 a year.'Piozzi Letters, i. 154.

[520]They were abolished by an act passed in 1747, being 'reckoned among the principal sources of the rebellions. They certainly kept the common people in subjection to their chiefs. By this act they were legally emancipated from slavery; but as the tenants enjoyed no leases, and were at all times liable to be ejected from their farms, they still depended on the pleasure of their lords, notwithstanding this interposition of the legislature, which granted a valuable consideration in money to every nobleman and petty baron, who was thus deprived of one part of his inheritance.' Smollett'sEngland, iii. 206. Seeante, p. 46, note 1, andpost, Oct. 22.

[521]'I doubt not but that since the regular judges have made their circuits through the whole country, right has been everywhere more wisely and more equally distributed; the complaint is, that litigation is grown troublesome, and that the magistrates are too few and therefore often too remote for general convenience... In all greater questions there is now happily an end to all fear or hope from malice or from favour. The roads are secure in those places through which forty years ago no traveller could pass without a convoy...No scheme of policy has in any country yet brought the rich and poor on equal terms to courts of judicature. Perhaps experience improving on experience may in time effect it.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 90.

[522]He described Rasay as 'the seat of plenty, civility, and cheerfulness.'Piozzi Letters, i. 152.

[523]'We heard the women singing as theywaulkedthe cloth, by rubbing it with their hands and feet, and screaming all the while in a sort of chorus. At a distance the sound was wild and sweet enough, but rather discordant when you approached too near the performers.' Lockhart'sScott, iv. 307.

[524]She had been some time at Edinburgh, to which she again went, and was married to my worthy neighbour, Colonel Mure Campbell, now Earl of Loudoun, but she died soon afterwards, leaving one daughter. BOSWELL. 'She is a celebrated beauty; has been admired at Edinburgh; dresses her head very high; and has manners so lady-like that I wish her head-dress was lower.'Piozzi Letters, i. 144. Seeante, iii. 118.

[525]

'Yet hope not life fromgriefor danger free,Northink the doom of man reversed for thee.'

The Vanity of Human Wishes.

[526]'Rasay accompanied us in his six-oared boat, which he said was his coach and six. It is indeed the vehicle in which the ladies take the air and pay their visits, but they have taken very little care for accommodations. There is no way in or out of the boat for a woman but by being carried; and in the boat thus dignified with a pompous name there is no seat but an occasional bundle of straw.'Piozzi Letters, i. 152. In describing the distance of one family from another, Johnson writes:—'Visits last several days, and are commonly paid by water; yet I never saw a boat furnished with benches.'Works, ix. 100.

[527]Seeante, ii. 106, and iii. 154.

[528]'They which forewent us did leave a Roome for us, and should wee grieve to doe the same to these which should come after us? Who beeing admitted to see the exquisite rarities of some antiquaries cabinet is grieved, all viewed, to have the courtaine drawen, and give place to new pilgrimes?'A Cypresse Grove, by William Drummond of Hawthorne-denne, ed. 1630, p. 68.

[529]Seeante, iii. 153, 295.

[530]

'While hoary Nestor, by experience wise,To reconcile the angry monarch tries.'

FRANCIS. Horace, iEpis. ii. II.

[531]See ante, p. 16.

[532]Lord Elibank died Aug. 3, 1778, aged 75.Gent. Mag.1778, p. 391.

[533]A term in Scotland for a special messenger, such as was formerly sent with dispatches by the lords of the council.

[534]Yet he said of him:—'There is nothingconclusivein his talk.'Anteiii. 57.

[535]'I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 402. Seeante, iv. 263.

[536]Johnson says (ib. ix. 156) that when the military road was made through Glencroe, 'stones were placed to mark the distances, which the inhabitants have taken away, resolved, they said, "to have no new miles."'

[537]

'The lawland lads think they are fine,But O they're vain and idly gawdy;How much unlike that graceful mienAnd manly look of my highland laddie.'

From 'The Highland Laddie, written long since by Allan Ramsay, and now sung at Ranelagh and all the other gardens; often fondly encored, and sometimes ridiculously hissed.'Gent. Mag. 1750, p. 325.

[538]'She is of a pleasing person and elegant behaviour. She told me that she thought herself honoured by my visit; and I am sure that whatever regard she bestowed on me was liberally repaid.'Piozzi Letters, i. 153. In hisJourney(Works, ix. 63) Johnson speaks of Flora Macdonald, as 'a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.'

[539]This word, which meant much the same as,fopordandy, is found in Bk. x. ch. 2 of Fielding'sAmelia(published in 1751):—'A large assembly of young fellows, whom they call bucks.' Less than forty years ago, in the neighbourhood of London, it was, I remember, still commonly applied by the village lads to the boys of a boarding-school.

[540]This word was at this time often used in a loose sense, though Johnson could not have so used it. Thus Horace Walpole, writing on May 16, 1759 (Letters, iii. 227), tells a story of the little Prince Frederick. 'T'other day as he was with the Prince of Wales, Kitty Fisher passed by, and the child named her; the Prince, to try him, asked who that was? "Why, a Miss." "A Miss," said the Prince of Wales, "why are not all girls Misses?" "Oh! but a particular sort of Miss—a Miss that sells oranges."' Mr. Cunningham in a note on this says:—'Orange-girls at theatres were invariably courtesans.'

[541]Governorwas the term commonly given to a tutor, especially a travelling tutor. Thus Peregrine Pickle was sent first to Winchester and afterwards abroad 'under the immediate care and inspection of a governor.'Peregrine Pickle, ch. xv.

[542]He and his wife returned before the end of the War of Independence. On the way back she showed great spirit when their ship was attacked by a French man of war. Chambers'sRebellion in Scotland, ii. 329.

[543]I do not call himthe Prince of Wales, orthe Prince, because I am quite satisfied that the right which theHouse of Stuarthad to the throne is extinguished. I do not call him, thePretender, because it appears to me as an insult to one who is still alive, and, I suppose, thinks very differently. It may be a parliamentary expression; but it is not a gentlemanly expression. Iknow, and I exult in having it in my power to tell, that THE ONLY PERSON in the world who is intitled to be offended at this delicacy, thinks and feels as I do; and has liberality of mind and generosity of sentiment enough to approve of my tenderness for what evenhas beenBlood Royal. That he is aprincebycourtesy, cannot be denied; because his mother was the daughter of Sobiesky, king of Poland. I shall, therefore,on that account alone, distinguish him by the name ofPrince Charles Edward. BOSWELL. To have called him thePretenderin the presence of Flora Macdonald would have been hazardous. In her old age, 'such is said to have been the virulence of the Jacobite spirit in her composition, that she would have struck any one with her fist who presumed, in her hearing, to call Charlesthe Pretender.' Chambers'sRebellion in Scotland, ii. 330.

[544]This, perhaps, was said in allusion to some lines ascribed toPope, on his lying, at John Duke of Argyle's, at Adderbury, in the same bed in which Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, had slept:

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