to invite us or not. It was dark when we arrived. The inn was wretched. Government ought to build one, or give the resident governour an additional salary; as, in the present state of things, he must necessarily be put to a great expense in entertaining travellers. Joseph announced to us, when we alighted, that the governour waited for us at the gate of the fort. We walked to it. He met us, and with much civility conducted us to his house. It was comfortable to find ourselves in a well-built little square, and a neatly furnished house, in good company, and with a good supper before us; in short, with all the conveniencies of civilized life in the midst of rude mountains. Mrs. Trapaud, and the governour's daughter, and her husband, Captain Newmarsh, were all most obliging and polite. The governour had excellent animal spirits, the conversation of a soldier, and somewhat of a Frenchman, to which his extraction entitles him. He is brother to General Cyrus Trapaud. We passed a very agreeable evening. Tuesday, 31st August. The governour has a very good garden. We looked at it, and at all the rest of the fort, which is but small, and may be commanded from a variety of hills around. We also looked at the galley or sloop belonging to the fort, which sails upon the Loch, and brings. what is wanted for the garrison. Captains Urie and Darippe, of the 15th regiment of foot, breakfasted with us. They had served in America, and entertained Dr. Johnson much with an account of the Indians. He said, he could make a very pretty book out of them, were he to stay there. Governor Trapaud was much struck with Dr. Johnson. "I like to hear him, (said he) it is so majestick. I should be glad to hear him speak in your court." He pressed us to stay dinner; but I considered that we had a rude road before us, which we could more easily encounter in the morning, and that it was hard to say when we might get up, were we to sit down to good entertainment, in good company; I therefore begged the governour would excuse us. Here, too, I had another very pleasing. proof how much my father is regarded. The governour expressed the highest respect for him, and bade me tell him, that, if he would come that way on a circuit to Inverness, he would do him all the honours of the garrison. Second Edition.-Line 36: "on a circuit to Inverness" altered to "on the Northern Circuit." Between twelve and one we set out, and travelled eleven miles, through a wild country, till we came to a house in Glenmorison, called Anoch, kept by a M'Queen. Our landlord was a sensible fellow he had learnt his grammar, and Dr. Johnson justly observed, that "a man is the better for that as long as he lives." There were some books here: a "Treatise against Drunkenness,” translated from the French; a volume of the "Spectator;" a volume of Prideaux's "Connection," and Cyrus's and Cyrus's "Travels." M'Queen said he had more volumes; and his pride seemed to be much piqued that we were surprised at his having books.1 Near to this place we had passed a party of soldiers, under a serjeant's command, at work upon the road. We gave them two shillings to drink. They came to our inn, and made merry in the barn. We went and paid them a visit, Dr. Johnson saying, "Come, let's go and give 'em another shilling a-piece." We did so; and he was saluted " 19 MY LORD by all of them. He is really generous, loves influence, and has the way of gaining it. He said, "I am quite feudal, Sir." Here I agree with him. I said, I regretted I was not the head of a clan; however, though not possessed of such an hereditary advantage, I would always endeavour to make my tenants follow me. I could not be a patriarchal chief, but I would be a feudal chief. The poor soldiers got too much liquor. Some of them fought, and left blood upon the spot, and cursed whisky next morning. The house here was built of thick turfs, and thatched with thinner turfs and heath. It had three rooms in length, and a little room which projected. Where we sat, the side-walls were wainscotted, as Dr. Johnson said, with wicker, very neatly plaited. Our landlord had made the whole with his own hands. After dinner, M'Queen sat by us awhile, and talked with us. He said, all the Laird of Glenmorison's people would bleed for him, if they were well used; but that seventy men had gone out of the Glen to America. That he himself intended to go next year; for that the rent of his farm, which twenty years ago was only five a A M'Queen is a Highland mode of expression. An Englishman would say one M'Queen. But where there are clans or tribes of men, distinguished by patronymick surnames, the individuals of each are considered as if they were of different species, at least as much as nations are distinguished; so that a M'Queen, a M'Donald, a M'Lean, is said, as we say a Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard. 1 Mr. Carruthers describes MacQueen as a gentleman of good birth, and married to a laird's daughter. He lived to be ninety, often talking of the olla Sasse nach ("jolly Englishman "), as he called Johnson. His pretty daughter married a watchmaker. That he could pay pounds, was now raised to twenty pounds. ten pounds, and live; but no more. Dr. Johnson said, he wished M'Queen laird of Glenmorison, and the laird to go to America. M'Queen very generously answered, he should be sorry for it; for the laird could not shift for himself in America as he could do. I talked of the officers whom we had left to-day; how much service they had seen, and how little they got for it, even of fame. JOHNSON. "Sir, a soldier gets as little as any man can get." BosWELL. "Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war, who were not Generals." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done. You must consider, that a thing is valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger." I wish our friend Goldsmith had heard this. I yesterday expressed my wonder that John Hay, one of our guides, who had been pressed aboard a man of war, did not chuse to continue longer than nine months, after which time he got off. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, no man will be a sailor, who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for, being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." We had tea in the afternoon, and our landlord's daughter, a modest civil girl, very neatly drest, made it for us. She told us, she had been a year at Inverness, and learnt reading and writing, sewing, knotting, working lace, and pastry. Dr. Johnson made her a present of a book which he had bought at Inverness." The room had some deals laid across the joists, as a kind of cieling. There were two beds in the room, and a woman's gown was hung on a rope to make a curtain of separation between them. Joseph had sheets, which my wife had sent with us, laid on them. We had much hesitation, whether to undress, or lye down with our This book has given rise to much inquiry, which has ended in ludicrous surprise. Several ladies, wishing to learn the kind of reading which the great and good Dr. Johnson esteemed most fit for a young woman, desired to know what book he had selected for this Highland nymph. They never adverted (said he) that I had no choice in the matter. I have said that I presented her with a book which I happened to have about me.' And what was this book? My readers, prepare your features for merriment. It was "Cocker's Arithmetick!" Wherever this was mentioned, there was a loud laugh, at which Dr. Johnson, when present, used sometimes to be a little angry. One day, when we were dining at General Oglethorpe's, where we had many a valuable day, I ventured to interrogate him, "But, Sir, is it not somewhat singular that you should happen to have 'Cocker's Arithmetick' about you on your journey? What made you buy such a book at Inverness?" He gave me a very sufficient answer. "Why, Sir, if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey, let it be a book of science. When you have read through a book of entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you; but a book of science is inexhaustible.” clothes on. I said at last, "I'll plunge in! There will be less harbour for vermin about me, when I am stripped!" Dr. Johnson said, he was like one hesitating whether to go into the cold bath. At last he resolved too. I observed, he might serve a campaign. JOHNSON. "I could do all that can be done by patience. Whether I should have strength enough, I know not." He was in excellent humour. To see the "Rambler" as I saw him to-night, was really an amusement. I yesterday told him, I was thinking of writing a poetical letter to him, on his return from Scotland, in the stile of Swift's humorous epistle in the character of Mary Gulliver to her husband, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, on his return to England from the country of the Houyhnhnms. "At early morn I to the market haste, Studious in ev'ry thing to please thy taste. Three shillings cost the first, the last sev'n groats; Sullen you turn from both, and call for OATS." He laughed, and asked in whose name I would write it. I said, in Mrs. Thrale's. He was angry. "Sir, if you have any sense of decency or delicacy, you won't do that!" BOSWELL. "Then let it be in Cole's, the landlord of the Mitre tavern; where we have so often sat together." JOHNSON. "Aye, that may do." After we had offered up our private devotions, and had chatted a little from our beds, Dr. Johnson said, "GOD bless us both, for JESUS CHRIST's sake! Good night!" I pronounced "Amen.” He fell asleep immediately. I was not so fortunate for a long time. I fancied myself bit by innumerable vermin under the clothes; and that a spider was travelling from the wainscot towards my mouth. At last I fell into insensibility. Wednesday, 1st September. I awaked very early. I began to imagine that the landlord, being about to emigrate, might murder us to get our money, and lay it upon the soldiers in the barn. Such groundless fears will arise in the mind, before it has resumed its vigour after sleep! Dr. Johnson had had the same kind of ideas; for he told me afterwards, that he considered so many soldiers, having seen us, would be witnesses, should any harm be done, and that circumstance, I suppose, he considered as a security. When I got up, I found sound asleep in his miserable stye, I may call it, with a coloured handkerchief tied round his head. With difficulty could I awaken him. It reminded me of Henry IV.'s fine soliloquy on sleep; for there was here as uneasy a pallet as the poet's imagination could possibly conceive. A red-coat of the 15th regiment, whether officer, or only serjeant, I could not be sure, came to the house, in his way to the mountains to shoot deer, which it seems the Laird of Glenmorison does not hinder any body to do. Few, indeed, can do them harm. We had him to breakfast with us. We got away about eight. M'Queen walked some miles to give us a convoy. He had, in 1745, joined the Highland army at Fort Augustus, and continued in it till after the battle of Culloden. As he narrated the particulars of that ill-advised, but brave attempt, I several times burst into tears. There is a certain association of ideas in my mind upon that subject, by which I am strongly affected. The very Highland names, or the sound of a bagpipe, will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate, and superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination for war; in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sober rationality has nothing to do. We passed through Glensheal, with prodigious mountains on each side. We saw where the battle was fought in the year 1719.1 Dr. Johnson owned he was now in a scene of as wild nature as he could see; but he corrected me sometimes in my inaccurate observations. "There, said I, is a mountain like a cone." JOHNSON. "No, Sir. It would be called so in a book; and when a man comes to look at it, he sees it is not so. It is indeed pointed at the top; but one side of it is larger than the other." Another mountain I called immense. JOHNSON. "No; it is no more than a considerable protuberance.' We came to a rich green valley, comparatively speaking, and stopt awhile to let our horses rest and eat grass.* We soon after Second Edition.-Line 14: "I several times burst into tears" altered to “I could not refrain from tears." 2 Dr. Johnson, in his "Journey," 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 1 Between the royal troops and some Spanish forces under Lord Seaforth, sent in aid of the Young Pretender's cause. VOL. III. 2 Mr. Boswell, no doubt, saw the absurdity of such repeated bursts of grief at a story. 19 |