Books: The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

J >> James Boswell >> The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

The subject of duelling was introduced. JOHNSON. 'There is no case in
England where one or other of the combatants MUST die: if you have
overcome your adversary by disarming him, that is sufficient, though
you should not kill him; your honour, or the honour of your family, is
restored, as much as it can be by a duel. It is cowardly to force your
antagonist to renew the combat, when you know that you have the
advantage of him by superior skill. You might just as well go and cut
his throat while he is asleep in his bed. When a duel begins, it is
supposed there may be an equality; because it is not always skill that
prevails. It depends much on presence of mind; nay on accidents. The
wind may be in a man's face. He may fall. Many such things may decide
the superiority. A man is sufficiently punished, by being called out,
and subjected to the risk that is in a duel.' But on my suggesting
that the injured person is equally subjected to risk, he fairly owned
he could not explain the rationality of duelling.

Monday, 20th September

When I awaked, the storm was higher still. It abated about nine, and
the sun shone; but it rained again very soon, and it was not a day for
travelling. At breakfast, Dr Johnson told us, 'there was once a pretty
good tavern in Catharine Street in the Strand, where very good company
met in an evening, and each man called for his own half pint of wine,
or gill, if he pleased: they were frugal men, and nobody paid but for
what he himself drank. The house furnished no supper; but a woman
attended with mutton-pies, which any body might purchase. I was
introduced to this company by Cumming the Quaker, and used to go there
sometimes when I drank wine. In the last age, when my mother lived in
London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and
those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned
to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether
I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now, it is
fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the
wall, another yields it, and it is never a dispute.' He was very
severe on a lady, whose name was mentioned. He said, he would have
sent her to St Kilda. That she was as bad as negative badness could
be, and stood in the way of what was good: that insipid beauty would
not go a great way; and that such a woman might be cut out of a
cabbage, if there was a skilful artificer.

M'Leod was too late in coming to breakfast. Dr Johnson said, laziness
was worse than the toothache. BOSWELL. 'I cannot agree with you, sir;
a bason of cold water, or a horse whip, will cure laziness.' JOHNSON.
'No, sir; it will only put off the fit; it will not cure the disease.
I have been trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do
it.' BOSWELL. 'But if a man does in a shorter time what might be the
labour of a life, there is nothing to be said against him.' JOHNSON
(perceiving at once that I alluded to him and his Dictionary).
'Suppose that flattery to be true, the consequence would be, that the
world would have no right to censure a man; but that will not justify
him to himself.'

After breakfast, he said to me, 'A Highland chief should now endeavour
to do every thing to raise his rents, by means of the industry of his
people. Formerly, it was right for him to have his house full of idle
fellows; they were his defenders, his servants, his dependants, his
friends. Now they may be better employed. The system of things is now
so much altered, that the family cannot have influence but by riches,
because it has no longer the power of ancient feudal times. An
individual of a family may have it; but it cannot now belong to a
family, unless you could have a perpetuity of men with the same views.
M'Leod has four times the land that the Duke of Bedford has. I think,
with his spirit, he may in time make himself the greatest man in the
king's dominions; for land may always be improved to a certain degree.
I would never have any man sell land, to throw money into the funds,
as is often done, or to try any other species of trade. Depend upon
it, this rage of trade will destroy itself. You and I shall not see
it; but the time will come when there will be an end of it. Trade is
like gaming. If a whole company are gamesters, play must cease; for
there is nothing to be won. When all nations are traders, there is
nothing to be gained by trade, and it will stop first where it is
brought to the greatest perfection. Then the proprietors of land only
will be the great men.' I observed, it was hard that M'Leod should
find ingratitude in so many of his people. JOHNSON. 'Sir, gratitude is
a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.'
I doubt of this. Nature seems to have implanted gratitude in all
living creatures. The lion, mentioned by Aulus Gellius, had it.
[Footnote: Aul. Gellius, Lib. v. c. xiv.] It appears to me that
culture, which brings luxury and selfishness with it, has a tendency
rather to weaken than promote this affection.

Dr Johnson said this morning, when talking of our setting out, that he
was in the state in which Lord Bacon represents kings. He desired the
end, but did not like the means. He wished much to get home, but was
unwilling to travel in Sky. 'You are like kings too in this, sir,'
said I, 'that you must act under the direction of others.'

Tuesday, 21st September

The uncertainty of our present situation having prevented me from
receiving any letters from home for some time, I could not help being
uneasy. Dr Johnson had an advantage over me, in this respect, he
having no wife or child to occasion anxious apprehensions in his mind.
It was a good morning; so we resolved to set out. But, before quitting
this castle, where we have been so well entertained, let me give a
short description of it.

Along the edge of the rock, there are the remains of a wall, which is
now covered with ivy. A square court is formed by buildings of
different ages, particularly some towers, said to be of great
antiquity; and at one place there is a row of false cannon of stone.
There is a very large unfinished pile, four stories high, which we
were told was here when Leod, the first of this family, came from the
Isle of Man, married the heiress of the M'Crails, the ancient
possessors of Dunvegan, and afterwards acquired by conquest as much
land as he had got by marriage. He surpassed the house of Austria; for
he was felix both bella genere et nubere. John Breck M'Leod, the
grandfather of the late laird, began to repair the castle, or rather
to complete it: but he did not live to finish his undertaking. Not
doubting, however, that he should do it, he, like those who have had
their epitaphs written before they died, ordered the following
inscription, composed by the minister of the parish, to be cut upon a
broad stone above one of the lower windows, where it still remains to
celebrate what was not done, and to serve as a memento of the
uncertainty of life, and the presumption of man:

Joannes Macleod Beganoduni Dominus gentis suae Philarchus, Durinesiae
Haraiae Vaternesiae, &c: Baro D. Florae Macdonald matrimoniali vinculo
conjugatus turrem hanc Beganodunensem proavorum habitaculum longe
vetustissimum diu penitus labefectatam Anno aerae vulgaris MDCLXXXVI
instauravit.

Quern stabilire juvat proavorum tecta vetusta,
Omne scelus fugiat, justitiamque colat.
Vertit in aerias turres magalia virtus,
Inque casas humiles tecta superba nefas.

M'Leod and Talisker accompanied us. We passed by the parish church of
Durinish. The church-yard is not enclosed, but a pretty murmuring
brook runs along one side of it. In it is a pyramid erected to the
memory of Thomas Lord Lovat, by his son Lord Simon, who suffered on
Towerhill. It is of free-stone, and, I suppose, about thirty feet
high. There is an inscription on a piece of white marble inserted in
it, which I suspect to have been the composition of Lord Lovat
himself, being much in his pompous style:

This pyramid was erected by SIMON LORD FRASER of LOVAT, in honour of
Lord THOMAS his Father, a Peer of Scotland, and Chief of the great and
ancient clan of the FRASERS. Being attacked for his birthright by the
family of ATHOLL, then in power and favour with KING WILLIAM, yet, by
the valour and fidelity of his clan, and the assistance of the
CAMPBELLS, the old friends and allies of his family, he defended his
birthright with such greatness and fermety of soul, and such valour
and activity, that he was an honour to his name, and a good pattern to
all brave Chiefs of clans. He died in the month of May, 1699, in the
63d year of his age, in Dunvegan, the house of the LAIRD of MAC LEOD,
whose sister he had married: by whom he had the above SIMON LORD
FRASER, and several other children. And, for the great love he bore to
the family of MAC LEOD, he desired to be buried near his wife's
relations, in the place where two of her uncles lay. And his son LORD
SIMON, to shew to posterity his great affection for his mother's
kindred, the brave MAC LEODS, chooses rather to leave his father's
bones with them, than carry them to his own burial-place, near Lovat.

I have preserved this inscription, though of no great value, thinking
it characteristical of a man who has made some noise in the world. Dr
Johnson said, it was poor stuff, such as Lord Lovat's butler might
have written.

I observed, in this church-yard, a parcel of people assembled at a
funeral, before the grave was dug. The coffin, with the corpse in it,
was placed on the ground, while the people alternately assisted in
making a grave. One man, at a little distance, was busy cutting a long
turf for it, with the crooked spade which is used in Sky; a very
aukward instrument. The iron part of it is like a plough-coulter. It
has a rude tree for a handle, in which a wooden pin is placed for the
foot to press upon. A traveller might, without further inquiry, have
set this down as the mode of burying in Sky. I was told, however, that
the usual way is to have a grave previously dug.

I observed to-day, that the common way of carrying home their grain
here is in loads on horse-back. They have also a few sleds, or cars,
as we call them in Ayrshire, clumsily made, and rarely used.

We got to Ulinish about six o'clock, and found a very good farm-house,
of two stories. Mr M'Leod of Ulinish, the sheriff-substitute of the
island, was a plain honest gentleman, a good deal like an English
justice of peace; not much given to talk, but sufficiently sagacious,
and somewhat droll. His daughter, though she was never out of Sky, was
a very well-bred woman. Our reverend friend, Mr Donald M'Queen, kept
his appointment, and met us here.

Talking of Phipps's voyage to the North Pole, Dr Johnson observed,
that it 'was conjectured that our former navigators have kept too near
land, and so have found the sea frozen far north, because the land
hinders the free motion of the tide; but, in the wide ocean, where the
waves tumble at their full convenience, it is imagined that the frost
does not take effect'.

Wednesday, 22d September

In the morning I walked out, and saw a ship, the Margaret of Clyde,
pass by with a number of emigrants on board. It was a melancholy
sight. After breakfast, we went to see what was called a subterraneous
house, about a mile off. It was upon the side of a rising-ground. It
was discovered by a fox's having taken up his abode in it, and in
chasing him, they dug into it. It was very narrow and low, and seemed
about forty feet in length. Near it, we found the foundations of
several small huts, built of stone. Mr M'Queen, who is always for
making every thing as ancient as possible, boasted that it was the
dwelling of some of the first inhabitants of the island, and observed,
what a curiosity it was to find here a specimen of the houses of the
Aborigines, which he believed could be found no where else; and it was
plain that they lived without fire. Dr Johnson remarked, that they who
made this were not in the rudest state; for that it was more difficult
to make it than to build a house; therefore certainly those who made
it were in possession of houses, and had this only as a hiding-place.
It appeared to me, that the vestiges of houses, just by it, confirmed
Dr Johnson's opinion.

From an old tower, near this place, is an extensive view of Loch
Braccadil, and, at a distance, of the isles of Barra and South Uist;
and on the landside, the Cuillin, a prodigious range of mountains,
capped with rocky pinnacles in a strange variety of shapes. They
resemble the mountains near Corte in Corsica, of which there is a very
good print. They make part of a great range for deer, which, though
entirely devoid of trees, is in these countries called a forest.

In the afternoon, Ulinish carried us in his boat to an island
possessed by him, where we saw an immense cave, much more deserving
the title of antrum immane than that of the Sybil described by Virgil,
which I likewise have visited. It is one hundred and eighty feet long,
about thirty feet broad, and at least thirty feet high. This cave, we
were told, had a remarkable echo; but we found none. They said it was
owing to the great rains having made it damp. Such are the excuses by
which the exaggeration of Highland narratives is palliated. There is a
plentiful garden at Ulinish (a great rarity in Sky), and several
trees; and near the house is a hill, which has an Erse name,
signifying 'the hill of strife', where, Mr M'Queen informed us,
justice was of old administered. It is like the mons placiti of Scone,
or those hills which are called laws, such as Kelly law, North Berwick
law, and several others. It is singular that this spot should happen
now to be the sheriff's residence.

We had a very cheerful evening, and Dr Johnson talked a good deal on
the subject of literature. Speaking of the noble family of Boyle, he
said, that all the Lord Orrerys, till the present, had been writers.
The first wrote several plays; the second was Bentley's antagonist;
the third wrote the Life of Swift, and several other things; his son
Hamilton wrote some papers in the Adventurer and World. He told us, he
was well acquainted with Swift's Lord Orrery. He said, he was a
feeble-minded man; that, on the publication of Dr Delany's Remarks on
his book, he was so much alarmed that he was afraid to read them. Dr
Johnson comforted him, by telling him they were both in the right;
that Delany had seen most of the good side of Swift, Lord Orrery most
of the bad. M'Leod asked, if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the
defects of a man with whom he lived in intimacy. JOHNSON. 'Why no,
sir, after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' He
added, 'If Lord Orrery had been rich, he would have been a very
liberal patron. His conversation was like his writings, neat and
elegant, but without strength. He grasped at more than his abilities
could reach; tried to pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a
better thinker than he was. There was a quarrel between him and his
father, in which his father was to blame; because it arose from the
son's not allowing his wife to keep company with his father's
mistress. The old lord shewed his resentment in his will--leaving his
library from his son, and assigning, as his reason, that he could not
make use of it.'

I mentioned the affectation of Orrery, in ending all his letters on
the Life of Swift in studied varieties of phrase, and never in the
common mode of 'I am', &c. an observation which I remember to have
been made several years ago by old Mr Sheridan. This species of
affectation in writing, as a foreign lady of distinguished talents
once remarked to me, is almost peculiar to the English. I took up a
volume of Dryden, containing the Conquest of Granada, and several
other plays, of which all the dedications had such studied
conclusions. Dr Johnson said, such conclusions were more elegant, and,
in addressing persons of high rank (as when Dryden dedicated to the
Duke of York), they were likewise more respectful. I agreed that THERE
it was much better: it was making his escape from the royal presence
with a genteel sudden timidity, in place of having the resolution to
stand still, and make a formal bow.

Lord Orrery's unkind treatment of his son in his will, led us to talk
of the dispositions a man should have when dying. I said, I did not
see why a man should act differently with respect to those of whom he
thought ill when in health, merely because he was dying. JOHNSON. 'I
should not scruple to speak against a party, when dying; but should
not do it against an individual. It is told of Sixtus Quintus, that on
his death-bed, in the intervals of his last pangs, he signed
death-warrants.' Mr M'Queen said, he should not do so; he would have
more tenderness of heart. JOHNSON. 'I believe I should not either; but
Mr M'Queen and I are cowards. It would not be from tenderness of
heart; for the heart is as tender when a man is in health as when he
is sick, though his resolution may be stronger. Sixtus Quintus was a
sovereign as well as a priest; and, if the criminals deserved death,
he was doing his duty to the last. You would not think a judge died
ill, who should be carried off by an apoplectick fit while pronouncing
sentence of death. Consider a class of men whose business it is to
distribute death: soldiers, who die scattering bullets. Nobody thinks
they die ill on that account.'

Talking of biography, he said, he did not think that the life of any
literary man in England had been well written. Beside the common
incidents of life, it should tell us his studies, his mode of living,
the means by which he attained to excellence, and his opinion of his
own works. He told us, he had sent Derrick to Dryden's relations, to
gather materials for his Life; and he believed Derrick had got all
that he himself should have got; but it was nothing. He added, he had
a kindness for Derrick, and was sorry he was dead.

His notion as to the poems published by Mr M'Pherson, as the works of
Ossian, was not shaken here. Mr M'Queen always evaded the point of
authenticity, saying only that Mr M'Pherson's pieces fell far short of
those he knew in Erse, which were said to be Ossian's. JOHNSON. 'I
hope they do. I am not disputing that you may have poetry of great
merit; but that M'Pherson's is not a translation from ancient poetry.
You do not believe it. I say before you, you do not believe it, though
you are very willing that the world should believe it.' Mr M'Queen
made no answer to this. Dr Johnson proceeded, 'I look upon M'Pherson's
Fingal to be as gross an imposition as ever the world was troubled
with. Had it been really an ancient work, a true specimen how men
thought at that time, it would have been a curiosity of the first
rate. As a modern production, it is nothing.' He said, he could never
get the meaning of an Erse song explained to him. They told him, the
chorus was generally unmeaning. 'I take it,' said he, 'Erse songs are
like a song which I remember: it was composed in Queen Elizabeth's
time, on the Earl of Essex; and the burthen was

"Radaratoo, radarate, radara tadara tandore."'

'But surely,' said Mr M'Queen, 'there were words to it, which had
meaning.' JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, sir, I recollect a stanza, and you shall
have it:

"O! then bespoke the prentices all,
Living in London, both proper and tall,
For Essex's sake they would fight all.
Radaratoo, radarate, radara, tadara, tandore."'

[Footnote: This droll quotation, I have since found, was from a song
in honour of the Earl of Essex, called 'Queen Elizabeth's Champion',
which is preserved in a collection of Old Ballads, in three volumes,
published in London in different years, between 1720 and 1730. The
full verse is as follows:

Oh! then bespoke the prentices all,
Living in London, both proper and tall,
In a kind letter sent straight to the Queen,
For Essex's sake they would fight all.
Raderer too, tandaro te,
Raderer, tenderer, tan do re.]

When Mr M'Queen began again to expatiate on the beauty of Ossian's
poetry, Dr Johnson entered into no further controversy, but, with a
pleasant smile, only cried, 'Ay, ay; Radaratoo, radarate.'

Thursday, 23d September

I took Fingal down to the parlour in the morning, and tried a test
proposed by Mr Roderick M'Leod, son to Ulinish. Mr M'Queen had said he
had some of the poem in the original. I desired him to mention any
passage in the printed book, of which he could repeat the original. He
pointed out one in page 50 of the quarto edition, and read the Erse,
while Mr Roderick M'Leod and I looked on the English; and Mr M'Leod
said, that it was pretty like what Mr M'Queen had recited. But when Mr
M'Queen read a description of Cuchullin's sword in Erse, together with
a translation of it in English verse, by Sir James Foulis, Mr M'Leod
said, that was much more like than Mr M'Pherson's translation of the
former passage. Mr M'Queen then repeated in Erse a description of one
of the horses in Cuchillin's car. Mr M'Leod said, Mr M'Pherson's
English was nothing like it.

When Dr Johnson came down, I told him that I had now obtained some
evidence concerning Fingal; for that Mr M'Queen had repeated a passage
in the original Erse, which Mr M'Pherson's translation was pretty
like; and reminded him that he himself had once said, he did not
require Mr M'Pherson's Ossian to be more like the original than Pope's
Homer. JOHNSON. 'Well, sir, this is just what I always maintained. He
has found names, and stories, and phrases, nay passages in old songs,
and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he
gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem.' If this was
the case, I observed, it was wrong to publish it as a poem in six
books. JOHNSON. 'Yes, sir; and to ascribe it to a time too when the
Highlanders knew nothing of BOOKS, and nothing of SIX; or perhaps were
got the length of counting six. We have been told, by Condamine, of a
nation that could count no more than four. This should be told to
Monboddo; it would help him. There is as much charity in helping a man
down-hill, as in helping him up-hill.' BOSWELL. 'I don't think there
is as much charity.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, sir, if his TENDENCY be downwards.
Till he is at the bottom, he flounders; get him once there, and he is
quiet. Swift tells, that Stella had a trick, which she learned from
Addison, of encouraging a man in absurdity, instead of endeavouring to
extricate him.'

Mr M'Queen's answers to the inquiries concerning Ossian were so
unsatisfactory, that I could not help observing, that, were he
examined in a court of justice, he would find himself under a
necessity of being more explicit. JOHNSON. 'Sir, he has told Blair a
little too much, which is published; and he sticks to it. He is so
much at the head of things here, that he has never been accustomed to
be closely examined; and so he goes on quite smoothly.' BOSWELL. 'He
has never had any body to work him.' JOHNSON. 'No, sir; and a man is
seldom disposed to work himself; though he ought to work himself, to
be sure.' Mr M'Queen made no reply. [Footnote: I think it but justice
to say, that I believe Dr Johnson meant to ascribe Mr M'Queen's
conduct to inaccuracy and enthusiasm, and did not mean any severe
imputation against him.]

Having talked of the strictness with which witnesses are examined in
courts of justice, Dr Johnson told us, that Garrick, though accustomed
to face multitudes, when produced as a witness in Westminster Hall,
was so disconcerted by a new mode of publick appearance, that he could
not understand what was asked. It was a cause where an actor claimed a
free benefit; that is to say, a benefit without paying the expence of
the house; but the meaning of the term was disputed. Garrick was
asked, 'Sir, have you a free benefit?' 'Yes.' 'Upon what terms have
you it?' 'Upon...the terms...of ...a FREE BENEFIT.' He was dismissed
as one from whom no information could be obtained. Dr Johnson is often
too hard on our friend Mr Garrick. When I asked him, why he did not
mention him in the Preface to his Shakspeare, he said, 'Garrick has
been liberally paid for any thing he has done for Shakspeare. If I
should praise him, I should much more praise the nation who paid him.
He has not made Shakspeare better known; [Footnote: It has been
triumphantly asked, 'Had not the plays of Shakspeare lain dormant for
many years before the appearance of Mr Garrick? Did he not exhibit the
most excellent of them frequently for thirty years together, and
render them extremely popular by his own inimitable performance?' He
undoubtedly did. But Dr Johnson's assertion has been misunderstood.
Knowing as well as the objectors what has been just stated, he must
necessarily have meant, that 'Mr Garrick did not as A CRITICK make
Shakspeare better known; he did not ILLUSTRATE any one PASSAGE in any
of his plays by acuteness of disquisition, sagacity of conjecture:'
and what had been done with any degree of excellence in THAT way was
the proper and immediate subject of his preface. I may add in support
of this explanation the following anecdote, related to me by one of
the ablest commentators on Shakspeare, who knew much of Dr Johnson:
'Now I have quitted the theatre,' cries Garrick, 'I will sit down and
read Shakspeare.' ''Tis time you should,' exclaimed Johnson, 'for I
much doubt if you ever examined one of his plays from the first scene
to the last.'] he cannot illustrate Shakspeare: So I have reasons
enough against mentioning him, were reasons necessary. There should be
reasons FOR it.' I spoke of Mrs Montague's very high praises of
Garrick. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is fit she should say so much, and I should
say nothing. Reynolds is fond of her book, and I wonder at it; for
neither I, nor Beauclerk, nor Mrs Thrale, could get through it.'
[Footnote: No man has less inclination to controversy than I have,
particularly with a lady. But as I have claimed, and am conscious of
being entitled to, credit, for the strictest fidelity, my respect for
the publick obliges me to take notice of an insinuation which tends to
impeach it.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28