约翰逊4-6-98

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's _Jacobite Relics_, i. 152.Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 198) writing on May 9, 1779, tells howon May 1 'the French had attempted to land [on Jersey], but LordSeaforth's new-raised regiment of 700 Highlanders, assisted by somemilitia and some artillery, made a brave stand and repelled theintruders.'[442] 'One of the men advised her, with the cunning that clowns nevercan be without, to ask more; but she said that a shilling was enough. Wegave her half a crown, and she offered part of it again.' _PiozziLetters_, i. 133.[443] Of this part of the journey Johnson wrote:--'We had very littleentertainment as we travelled either for the eye or ear. There are, Ifancy, no singing birds in the Highlands.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 135. Itis odd that he should have looked for singing birds on the first ofSeptember.[444] Act iii. sc. 4.[445] It is amusing to observe the different images which this beingpresented to Dr. Johnson and me. The Doctor, in his _Journey_, compareshim to a Cyclops. BOSWELL. 'Out of one of the beds on which we were torepose, started up at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from theforge.' _Works_, ix. 44. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'When we weretaken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed where one of uswas to lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be got'. _PiozziLetters_, i, 136. Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 404) says: 'It isclear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which hewrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple,energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did hissentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebridesto Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the _Journey tothe Hebrides_ is the translation; and it is amusing to compare the twoversions.' Macaulay thereupon quotes these two passages. See _ante_,under Aug. 29, 1783.[446] 'We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with mysupper.'_Piozzi Letters_, i, 136. Goldsmith, who in his student days hadbeen in Scotland, thus writes of a Scotch inn:--'Vile entertainment isserved up, complained of, and sent down; up comes worse, and that alsois 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 achoice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss how to determine.'_Ann. Reg._ 1759, p. 246.[448] See _ante_, p. 89.[449] See _ante_, ii. 169, note 2.[450] Boswell, in a note that he added to the second edition (see_post_, end of the _Journal_), says that he has omitted 'a fewobservations the publication of which might perhaps be considered aspassing the bounds of a strict decorum,' In the first edition (p. 165)the next three paragraphs were as follows:--'Instead of finding the headof the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, and a festive entertainment,we had a small company, and cannot boast of our cheer. The particularsare minuted in my Journal, but I shall not trouble the publick withthem. I shall mention but one characteristick circumstance. My shrewdand hearty friend Sir Thomas (Wentworth) Blacket, Lady Macdonald'suncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon being asked byhim 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 anEton scholar, Dr. Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was muchdiminished when he beheld him in the isle of Sky, where we heard heavycomplaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. Dr.Johnson said, "It grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear tosuch disadvantage. This gentleman has talents, nay some learning; but heis totally unfit for this situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should notbe allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen. A strong-minded man, likehis brother Sir James, may be improved by an English education; but ingeneral they will be tamed into insignificance." 'I meditated an escapefrom this house the very next day; but Dr. Johnson resolved that weshould weather it out till Monday.' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Wesaw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rockycoast. A boat was procured, and we launched into one of the straits ofthe Atlantick Ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the pointwhere ---- ---- resided, having come from his seat in the middle of theisland to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might withless reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, hisretrograde 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 nowcall Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony,and given occasion to so many stories, that ---- has some thoughts ofcollecting them, and making a novel of his life.' _Ib_. p. 198. The lastof Rowlandson's _Caricatures_ of Boswell's _Journal_ is entitled_Revising for the Second Edition_. Macdonald is represented as seizingBoswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to the _Journal_ thatlies 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's _Bothie_, p. 125[452] See his Latin verses addressed to Dr. Johnson, in this APPENDIX.BOSWELL.[453] See _ante_, ii. 157.[454] See _ante_, i. 449.[455] See _ante_, ii. 99.[456] See _ante_, iii 198, note 1.[457] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation, that the inquirer iskept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradationknows less as he hears more.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 47. 'They are notmuch accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to havethought upon interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know whatthey tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to befalse. Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the result ofhis investigations was, that the answer to the second question wascommonly such as nullified the answer to the first.' _Ib._, p. 114.[458] Mr. Carruthers, in his edition of Boswell's _Hebrides_, says (p.xiv):--'The new management and high rents took the tacksmen, or largertenants, by surprise. They were indignant at the treatment theyreceived, and selling off their stock they emigrated to America. In thetwenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailedfrom the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containingabout 6400 persons, who carried with them in specie at least L38,400. Adesperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of LordMacdonald. They bound themselves by a solemn oath not to offer for anyfarm that might become vacant. The combination failed of its object, butit appeared so formidable in the eyes of the "English-bred chieftain,"that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwardsreturned.'[459] Dr. Johnson seems to have forgotten that a Highlander going armedat this period incurred the penalty of serving as a common soldier forthe first, and of transportation beyond sea for a second offence. And asfor 'calling out his clan,' twelve Highlanders and a bagpipe made arebellion. WALTER SCOTT.[460] Mackintosh (_Life_ ii. 62) says that in Mme. du Deffand's_Correspondence_ there is 'an extraordinary confirmation of the talentsand accomplishments of our Highland Phoenix, Sir James Macdonald. AHighland chieftain, admired by Voltaire, could have been noordinary man.'[461] This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowingintimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minuteparticulars concerning him must be interesting to many. I shalltherefore insert his two last letters to his mother, Lady MargaretMacdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me.'Rome, July 9th, 1766. 'My DEAR MOTHER, 'Yesterday's post brought meyour 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 alwaysexperienced, and to which I have often owed my life. Indeed it never wasin so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have beena very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I oughtto rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such aspectacle. I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue togive you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; butI must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak andmiserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to myphysician. My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visiblecause; and the palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomachwill soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time.So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the littleremains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventhday of such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed;--I only recoverslower than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause ofit is a dose of physick, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I amnot able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, andremain always 'Your most sincerely affectionate son, 'J. MACDONALD.' Hegrew gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote asfollows from Frescati:--'MY DEAR MOTHER, 'Though I did not mean todeceive you in my last letter from Rome, yet certainly you would havevery little reason to conclude of the very great and constant danger Ihave gone through ever since that time. My life, which is still almostentirely desperate, did not at that time appear to me so, otherwise Ishould have represented, in its true colours, a fact which acquires verylittle horror by that means, and comes with redoubled force bydeception. There is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I havenot had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight;during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death, with asmuch distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admitof. In case of the worst, the Abbe Grant will be my executor in thispart of the world, and Mr. Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object hasbeen to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest aspossible.' BOSWELL. Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 291), in 1779, thusmentions this 'younger brother':--'Macdonald abused Lord North in verygross, yet too applicable, terms; and next day pleaded he had beendrunk, recanted, and was all admiration and esteem for his Lordship'stalents and virtues.'[462] See _ante_, iii. 85, and _post_, Oct. 28.[463] Cheyne's English Malady, ed. 1733, p. 229.[464] 'Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2. See_ante_, iii. 350, where Boswell is reproached by Johnson with 'bringingin gabble,' when he makes this quotation.[465] VARIOUS READINGS. Line 2. In the manuscript, Dr. Johnson, insteadof _rupibus obsita_, had written _imbribus uvida_, and _uvida 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's _Works_, i. 167, these lines are given with somevariations, which perhaps are in part due to Mr. Langton, who, we aretold (_ante_, Dec. 1784), edited some, if not indeed all, of Johnson'sLatin poems.[466] Cowper wrote to S. Rose on May 20, 1789:--'Browne was anentertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before;this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much.'Southey's _Cowper_, vi. 237. His _De Animi Immortalitate_ was publishedin 1754. He died in 1760, aged fifty-four. See _ante_, ii. 339.[467] Boswell, in one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_ante_, iv. 179)says:--'I do fairly acknowledge that I love Drinking; that I have aconstitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and that ifit were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am afraid Ishould be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man.... Drinking is inreality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the timeof many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeablemanner is one of the great arts of living. Were we so framed that itwere possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep ourselves for evergay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking would be the_summum bonum_, the chief good, to find out which philosophers have beenso variously busied. But we know from humiliating experience that mencannot be kept long in a state of elevated drunkenness.'[468] That my readers may have my narrative in the style of the countrythrough which I am travelling, it is proper to inform them, that thechief of a clan is denominated by his _surname_ alone, as M'Leod,M'Kinnon, M'lntosh. To prefix _Mr._ to it would be a degradation from_the_ M'Leod, &c. My old friend, the Laird of M'Farlane, the greatantiquary, took it highly amiss, when General Wade called him Mr.M'Farlane. Dr. Johnson said, he could not bring himself to use this modeof address; it seemed to him to be too familiar, as it is the way inwhich, in all other places, intimates or inferiors are addressed. Whenthe chiefs have _titles_ they are denominated by them, as _Sir JamesGrant_, _Sir Allan M'Lean_. The other Highland gentlemen, of landedproperty, are denominated by their _estates_, as _Rasay_, _Boisdale_;and the wives of all of them have the title of _ladies_. The _tacksmen_,or principal tenants, are named by their farms, as _Kingsburgh_,_Corrichatachin_; and their wives are called the _mistress_ ofKingsburgh, the _mistress_ of Corrichatachin.--Having given thisexplanation, I am at liberty to use that mode of speech which generallyprevails in the Highlands and the Hebrides. BOSWELL.[469] See _ante_, iii. 275.[470] Boswell implies that Sir A. Macdonald's table had not beenfurnished plentifully. Johnson wrote:--'At night we came to a tenant'shouse of the first rank of tenants, where we were entertained betterthan at the landlord's.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 141.[471] 'Little did I once think,' he wrote to her the same day, 'ofseeing this region of obscurity, and little did you once expect asalutation from this verge of European life. I have now the pleasure ofgoing where nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees.' _Piozzi Letters_,i. 120. About fourteen years since, I landed in Sky, with a party offriends, and had the curiosity to ask what was the first idea on everyone'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 findbooks in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them,except one from which the family was removed.' Johnson's _Works_, ix.50. He is speaking of 'the higher rank of the Hebridians,' for on p. 61he says:--'The greater part of the islanders make no use of books.'[474] There was a Mrs. Brooks, an actress, the daughter of a Scotchmannamed Watson, who had forfeited his property by 'going out in the '45.'But according to _The Thespian Dictionary_ her first appearance on thestage was in 1786.[475] Boswell mentions, _post_, Oct. 5, 'the famous Captain ofClanranald, who fell at Sherrif-muir.'[476] See _ante_, p. 95.[477] By John Macpherson, D.D. See _post_, Sept. 13.[478] Sir Walter Scott, when in Sky in 1814, wrote:--'We learn that mostof the Highland superstitions, even that of the second sight, are stillin force.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 305. See _.ante_, ii.10, 318.[479] Of him Johnson wrote:--'One of the ministers honestly told me thathe came to Sky with a resolution not to believe it.' _Works_, ix. 106.[480] 'By the term _second sight_ seems to be meant a mode of seeingsuperadded to that which nature generally bestows. In the Erse it iscalled _Taisch_; which signifies likewise a spectre or a vision.'_Johnson's Works_, ix. 105.[481] Gray's _Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College_, 1. 44.[482] A tonnage bounty of thirty shillings a ton was at this time givento the owners of busses or decked vessels for the encouragement of thewhite herring fishery. Adam Smith (_Wealth of Nations_, iv. 5) shews howmischievous 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 artlessshoes, stitched with thongs so loosely, that, though they defend thefoot from stones, they do not exclude water.' Johnson's _Works_, ix 46.[485] To evade the law against the tartan dress, the Highlanders used todye their variegated plaids and kilts into blue, green, or any singlecolour. WALTER SCOTT.[486] See _post_, Oct. 5.[487] The Highlanders were all well inclined to the episcopalian form,_proviso_ that the right _king_ was prayed for. I suppose Malcolm meantto say, 'I will come to your church because you are honest folk,' viz._Jacobites_. WALTER SCOTT.[488] See _ante_, 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 wemay try our powers both with cliffs and water.'[490] 'The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancingagitation.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142. 'The water was calm and the rowerswere vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant.' Johnson's_Works_, ix. 54.[491]'Caught in the wild Aegean seas,The sailor bends to heaven for ease.'FRANCIS. Horace, 2, _Odes_, xvi. 1.[492] See _ante_, iv. Dec. 9, 1784, note.[493] Such spells are still believed in. A lady of property in Mull, afriend of mine, had a few years since much difficulty in rescuing fromthe superstitious fury of the people, an old woman, who used a _charm_to injure her neighbour's cattle. It is now in my possession, andconsists of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and such like trash, wraptin 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 celebratedAddress to the Sun; and another person repeat the description ofCuchullin's car. But all agree as to the gross infidelity of Macphersonas a translator and editor.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 308.[495] See _post_, Nov. 10.[496] 'The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. Thestrokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest-song,in which all their voices were united.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 58.[497] 'The money which he raises annually by rent from all hisdominions, which contain at least 50,000 acres, is not believed toexceed L250; but as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sellsevery year great numbers of cattle ... The wine circulates vigorously,and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always athand.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142. 'Of wine and punch they are veryliberal, for they get them cheap; but as there is no custom-house on theisland, they can hardly be considered as smugglers.' _Ib_. p. 160.'Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is noofficer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impostis obtained here at an easy rate.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 52.[498] 'No man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which theycall a _skalk_.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. p. 51.[499] Alexander Macleod, of Muiravenside, advocate, became extremelyobnoxious to government by his zealous personal efforts to engage hischief Macleod, and Macdonald of Sky, in the Chevalier's attempts of1745. Had he succeeded, it would have added one third at least to theJacobite army. Boswell has oddly described _M'Cruslick_, the being whosename was conferred upon this gentleman, as something between Proteus andDon Quixote. It is the name of a species of satyr, or _esprit follet_, asort of mountain Puck or hobgoblin, seen among the wilds and mountains,as the old Highlanders believed, sometimes mirthful, sometimesmischievous. Alexander Macleod's precarious mode of life and variable