Oct. 22.] Adieu to Lochbuy. 391 been fined in a considerable sum by the Court of Justiciary, he was so little affected by it, that while we were examining the dungeon, he said to me, with a smile, 'Your father knows something of this;' (alluding to my father's having sat as one of the judges on his trial.) Sir Allan whispered me, that the laird could not be persuaded that he had lost his heritable jurisdiction'. We then set out for the ferry, by which we were to cross to the main land of Argyleshire. Lochbuy and Sir Allan accompanied us. We were told much of a war-saddle, on which this reputed Don Quixote used to be mounted; but we did not see it, for the young laird had applied it to a less noble purpose, having taken it to Falkirk fair with a drove of black cattle. We bade adieu to Lochbuy, and to our very kind conductor2, Sir Allan M'Lean, on the shore of Mull, and then got into the ferry-boat, the bottom of which was strewed with branches of trees or bushes, upon which we sat. We had a 'a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a ladder or a rope.' 'See ante, p. 201. • Sir Allan M'Lean, like many Highland chiefs, was embarrassed in his private affairs, and exposed to unpleasant solicitations from attorneys, called, in Scotland, writers (which indeed was the chief motive of his retiring to Inchkenneth). Upon one occasion he made a visit to a friend, then residing at Carron lodge, on the banks of the Carron, where the banks of that river are studded with pretty villas: Sir Allan, admiring the landscape, asked his friend, whom that handsome seat belonged to. 'M, the writer to the signet,' was the reply. 'Umph!' said Sir Allan, but not with an accent of assent, I mean that other house.' 'Oh! that belongs to a very honest fellow Jamie also a writer to the signet.' 'Umph!' said the Highland chief of M'Lean with more emphasis than before, ‘And yon smaller house?' 'That belongs to a Stirling man; I forget his name, but I am sure he is a writer too; for. Sir Allan who had recoiled a quarter of a circle backward at every response, now wheeled the circle entire and turned his back on the landscape, saying, 'My good friend, I must own you have a pretty situation here; but d-n your neighbourhood.' WALTER SCOTT. good 392 Goldsmith's TRAVELLER. [Oct. 23. good day and a fine passage, and in the evening landed at Oban, where we found a tolerable inn. After having been so long confined at different times in islands, from which it was always uncertain when we could get away, it was comfortable to be now on the main land, and to know that, if in health, we might get to any place in Scotland or England in a certain number of days. Here we discovered from the conjectures which were formed, that the people on the main land were entirely ignorant of our motions; for in a Glasgow news-paper we found a paragraph, which, as it contains a just and well-turned compliment to my illustrious friend, I shall insert : 'We are well assured that Dr. Johnson is confined by tempestuous weather to the isle of Sky; it being unsafe to venture, in a small boat, upon such a stormy surge as is very common there at this time of the year. Such a philosopher, detained on an almost barren island, resembles a whale left upon the strand. The latter will be welcome to every body, on account of his oil, his bone, &c., and the other will charm his companions, and the rude inhabitants, with his superior knowledge and wisdom, calm resignation, and unbounded benevolence.' SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23. After a good night's rest, we breakfasted at our leisure. We talked of Goldsmith's Traveller, of which Dr. Johnson spoke highly; and, while I was helping him on with his great coat, he repeated from it the character of the British nation, which he did with such energy, that the tear started into his eye: 'Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state, Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of human kind pass by, Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, By forms unfashion'd, fresh from nature's hand; True to imagin'd right, above control, While ev'n the peasant boasts these rights to scan, We Oct. 23.] Pope and Cowley compared. 393 We could get but one bridle here, which, according to the maxim detur digniori, was appropriated to Dr. Johnson's sheltie. I and Joseph rode with halters. We crossed in a ferry-boat a pretty wide lake', and on the farther side of it, close by the shore, found a hut for our inn. We were much wet. I changed my clothes in part, and was at pains to get myself well dried. Dr. Johnson resolutely kept on all his clothes, wet as they were, letting them steam before the smoky turf fire. I though him in the wrong; but his firmness was, perhaps, a species of heroism. I remember but little of our conversation. I mentioned Shenstone's saying of Pope, that he had the art of condensing sense more than any body'. Dr. Johnson said, 'It is not true, Sir. There is more sense in a line of Cowley than in a page (or a sentence, or ten lines,-I am not quite certain of the very phrase) of Pope.' He maintained that Archibald, Duke of Argyle', was a narrow man. I wondered at this; and observed, that his building so great a house at Inverary was not like a narrow man. 'Sir, (said he,) when a narrow man has resolved to build a house, he builds it like another man. But Archibald, Duke of Argyle, was narrow in his ordinary expences, in his quotidian expences.' The distinction is very just. It is in the ordinary expences 1 Loch Awe. ''Pope's talent lay remarkably in what one may naturally enough term the condensation of thoughts. I think no other English poet ever brought so much sense into the same number of lines with equal smoothness, ease, and poetical beauty. Let him who doubts of this peruse his Essay on Man with attention.' Shenstone's Essays on Men and Manners. [Works, 4th edit. ii. 159.] He [Gray] approved an observation of Shenstone, that "Pope had the art of condensing a thought."' Nicholls' Reminiscences of Gray, p. 37. And Swift [in his Lines on the death of Dr. Swift], himself a great condenser, says— 'In Pope I cannot read a line But with a sigh I wish it mine; P. CUNNINGHAM. ' He is described by Walpole in his Letters, viii. 5. of 394 Johnson's description of a night ride. [Oct. 23. of life that a man's liberality or narrowness is to be discovered. I never heard the word quotidian in this sense, and I imagined it to be a word of Dr. Johnson's own fabrication; but I have since found it in Young's Night Thoughts, (Night fifth,) 'Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey,' and in my friend's Dictionary, supported by the authorities of Charles I. and Dr. Donne. It rained very hard as we journied on after dinner. The roar of torrents from the mountains, as we passed along in the dusk, and the other circumstances attending our ride in the evening, have been mentioned with so much animation by Dr. Johnson, that I shall not attempt to say any thing. on the subject'. We got at night to Inverary, where we found an excellent inn. Even here, Dr. Johnson would not change his wet clothes. The prospect of good accommodation cheered us much. We supped well; and after supper, Dr. Johnson, whom I had not seen taste any fermented liquor during all our travels, called for a gill of whiskey. 'Come, (said he,) let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy! He drank it all The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills on one side, and fell into one general channel, that ran with great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough musick of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.' Johnson's Works, ix. 155. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale: -'All the rougher powers of nature except thunder were in motion, but there was no danger. I should have been sorry to have missed any of the inconveniencies, to have had more light or less rain, for their co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.' Piozzi Letters, i. 177. ''I never tasted whiskey except once for experiment at the inn in Inverary, when I thought it preferable to any English malt brandy. It was strong, but not pungent, and was free from the empyreumatick taste or smell. What was the process I had no opportunity of in but Oct. 23.] Boswell's letter to Garrick. 395 but a drop, which I begged leave to pour into my glass, that I might say we had drunk whisky together. I proposed Mrs. Thrale should be our toast. He would not have her drunk in whisky, but rather some insular lady;' so we drank one of the ladies whom we had lately left. He owned to-night, that he got as good a room and bed as at an English inn. I had here the pleasure of finding a letter from home, which relieved me from the anxiety I had suffered, in consequence of not having received any account of my family for many weeks. I also found a letter from Mr. Garrick, which was a regale' as agreeable as a pine-apple would be in a desert'. He had favoured me with his correspondence for many years; and when Dr. Johnson and I were at Inverness, I had written to him as follows: 'MY DEAR SIR, 6 'Inverness, 'Sunday, 29 August, 1773. Here I am, and Mr. Samuel Johnson actually with me. We were a night at Fores, in coming to which, in the dusk of the evening, we passed over the bleak and blasted heath where Macbeth met the witches'. Your old preceptor' repeated, with much solemnity, the speech "How far is't called to Fores? What are these, quiring, nor do I wish to improve the art of making poison pleasant.' Johnson's Works, ix. 52. Smollett, medical man though he was, looked upon whisky as anything but poison. I am told that it is given with great success to infants, as a cordial in the confluent smallpox.' Humphry Clinker. Letter of Sept. 3. 1 Regale in this sense is not in Johnson's Dictionary. It was, however, a favourite word at this time. Thus, Mrs. Piozzi, in her Journey through France, ii. 297, says :-'A large dish of hot chocolate thickened with bread and cream is a common afternoon's regale here.' Miss Burney often uses the word. 'Boswell, in answering Garrick's letter seven months later, improved on this comparison. It was,' he writes, 'a pine-apple of the finest flavour, which had a high zest indeed among the heath-covered mountains of Scotia.' Garrick Corres. i, 621. See ante, p. 131. • See ante, i. 112. |