1775. writers of travels, who, he observed, "were more defective than any other writers." Etat. 66. I passed many hours with him on the 17th, of which I find all my memorial is, "much laughing." It should seem he had that day been in a humour for jocularity and merriment, and upon such occasions I never knew a man laugh more heartily. We may suppose, that the high relish of a state so different from his habitual gloom, produced more than ordinary exertions of that distinguishing faculty of man, which has puzzled philosophers so much to explain. Johnson's laugh was as remarkable as any circumstance in his manner. It was a kind of good humoured growl. Tom Davies described it drolly enough: "He laughs like a rhinoceros." 66 TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. DEAR SIR, "I HAVE an old amanuensis in great distress. I have given what I think I can give, and begged till I cannot tell where to beg again. I put into his hands this morning four guineas. If you could collect three guineas more, it would clear him from his present difficulty. I am, Sir, "Your most humble servant, 66 May 21, 1775. 66 DEAR SIR, TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "I MAKE no doubt but you are now safely lodg ed in your own habitation, and have told all your adventures to Mrs. Boswell and Miss Veronica. Pray teach Veronica to love me. Bid her not mind mamma. "Mrs. Thrale has taken cold, and been very much disordered, but I hope is grown well. Mr. Langton went yesterday to Lincolnshire, and has invited Nicolaida to follow him. Beauclerk talks of going to Bath. I am to set out on Monday; so there is nothing but dispersion. 2 A learned Greek. "I have returned Lord Hailes's entertaining sheets, 1775. but must stay till I come back for more, because it Etat. will be inconvenient to send them after me in my 66. vagrant state. 3 "I promised Mrs. Macaulay that I would try to serve her son at Oxford. I have not forgotten it, nor am unwilling to perform it. If they desire to give him an English education, it should be considered whether they cannot send him for a year or two to an English school. If he comes immediately from Scotland, he can make no figure in our Universities. The schools in the north, I believe, are cheap; and when I was a young man, were eminently good. "There are two little books published by the Foulis, Telemachus and Collins's Poems, each a shilling; I would be glad to have them. "Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, though she does not love me. You see what perverse things ladies are, and how little fit to be trusted with fuedal estates. When she mends and loves me, there may be more hope of her daughters. "I will not send compliments to my friends by name, because I would be loath to leave any out in the enumeration. Tell them, as you see them, how well I speak of Scotch politeness, and Scotch hospitality, and Scotch beauty, and of every thing Scotch, but Scotch oat-cakes, and Scotch prejudices. "Let me know the answer of Rasay, and the decision relating to Sir Allan.+ I am, my dearest Sir, with great affection, 66 "Your most obliged, and "Most humble servant, May 27, 1775. "SAM. JOHNSON." After my return to Scotland, I wrote three letters to him, from which I extract the following passages: "I have seen Lord Hailes since I came down. He thinks it wonderful that you are pleased to take so 3 Wife of the Reverend Mr. Kenneth Macaulay, authour of « The History of St. Kilda." 4 A law-suit carried on by Sir Allan Maclean, Chief of his Clan, to recover certain parts of his family estates from the Duke of Argyle. 1775. much pains in revising his Annals.' I told him that Etat, you said you were well rewarded by the entertain66. ment which you had in reading them." "There has been a numerous flight of Hebrideans in Edinburgh this summer, whom I have been happy to entertain at my house. Mr. Donald Macqueens and Lord Monboddo supped with me one evening. They joined in controverting your proposition, that the Gaelick of the Highlands and Isles of Scotland was not written till of late." 66 My mind has been somewhat dark this summer. I have need of your warming and vivifying rays; and I hope I shall have them frequently. I am going to pass some time with my father at Auchinleck." 66 TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. DEAR SIR, "I AM returned from the annual ramble into the middle counties. Having seen nothing I had not seen before, I have nothing to relate. Time has left that part of the island few antiquities; and commerce has left the people no singularities. I was glad to go abroad, and, perhaps, glad to come home; which is, in other words, I was, I am afraid, weary of being at home, and weary of being abroad. Is not this the state of life? But, if we confess this weariness let us not lament it; for all the wise and all the good say, that we may cure it. "For the black fumes which rise in your mind, I can prescribe nothing but that you disperse them by honest business or innocent pleasure, and by reading, sometimes easy and sometimes serious. Change of place is useful; and I hope that your residence at Auchinleck will have many good effects. "That I should have given pain to Rasay, I am sincerely sorry; and am therefore very much pleased that he is no longer uneasy. He still thinks that I have 5 A very learned minister in the Isle of Sky, whom both Dr. Johnson and I have mentioned with regard. represented his as personally giving up the Chief- 1775. tainship. I meant only that it was no longer contested Ætat. between the two houses, and supposed it settled, per- 66. haps, by the cession of some remote generation, in the house of Dunvegan. I am sorry the advertisement was not continued for three or four times in the paper. "That Lord Monboddo and Mr. Macqueen should controvert a position contrary to the imaginary interest of literary or national prejudice, might be easily imagined; but of a standing fact there ought to be no controversy; if there are men with tails, catch an homo caudatus; if there was writing of old in the Highlands or Hebrides, in the Erse language, produce the manuscripts. Where men write they will write to one another, and some of their letters, in families studious of their ancestry, will be kept. In Wales there are many manuscripts. "I have now three parcels of Lord Hailes's history, which I purpose to return all the next week: that his respect for my little observations should keep his work in suspense, makes one of the evils of my journey. It is in our language, I think, a new mode of history which tells all that is wanted, and, I suppose, all that is known, without laboured splendour of language, or affected subtilty of conjecture. The exactness of his dates raises my wonder. He seems to have the closeness of Henault without his constraint. "Mrs. Thrale was so entertained with your Journal,' that she almost read herself blind. She has a great regard for you. "Of Mrs. Boswell, though she knows in her heart that she does not love me, I am always glad to hear any good, and hope that she and the little dear ladies will have neither sickness nor any other affliction. But she knows that she does not care what becomes of me, and for that she may be sure that I think her very much to blame. "Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head to think that I do not love you; you may settle your "My " Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," which that lady read in the original manuscript. Etat. 1775. self in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, 66. and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety. I hold you as Hamlet has it in my heart of hearts,' and therefore, it is little to say, that I am, Sir, "Your affectionate humble servant, "London, August 27, 1775. "SIR, TO THE SAME. "IF in these papers, there is little alteration attempted, do not suppose me negligent. I have read them perhaps more closely than the rest; but I find nothing worthy of an objection. "Write to me soon, and write often, and tell me all your honest heart. freaks "I NOW write to you, lest in some of your and humours you should fancy yourself neglected. Such fancies I must entreat you never to admit, at least never to indulge; for my regard for you is so radicated and fixed, that it is become part of my mind and cannot be effaced but by some cause uncommonly violent; therefore whether I write or not, set your thoughts at rest. I now write to tell you that I shall not very soon write again, for I am to set out to-morrow on another journey. "Your friends are all well at Streatham, and in Leicester-fields. Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, if she is in good humour with me. "I am, Sir, &c. |