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The English chapel at Inverness. [August 29.

Not finding a letter here that I expected, I felt a momentary impatience to be at home. Transient clouds darkened my imagination, and in those clouds I saw events from which I shrunk; but a sentence or two of the Rambler's conversation gave me firmness, and I considered that I was upon an expedition for which I had wished for years, and the recollection of which would be a treasure to me for life.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 29.

Mr. Keith breakfasted with us. Dr. Johnson expatiated rather too strongly upon the benefits derived to Scotland from the Union', and the bad state of our people before it. I am entertained with his copious exaggeration upon that subject; but I am uneasy when people are by, who do not know him as well as I do, and may be apt to think him narrow-minded'. I therefore diverted the subject.

The English chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. The altar was a bare fir table, with a coarse stool for kneeling on, covered with a piece of thick sail-cloth doubled, by way of cushion. The congregation was small. Mr. Tait, the clergyman, read prayers very well, though with much of the Scotch accent. He preached on 'Love your Enemies'. It was remarkable that, when talking of the connections amongst men, he said, that some connected themselves with men of distinguished talents, and since they could not equal them, tried to deck themselves with their merit, by being their companions. The sentence was to this purpose. It had an odd coincidence with what might be said of my connecting myself with Dr. Johnson'.

1 See ante, iii. 466, where he said to an Irish gentleman :-'Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them.'

"It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson read this gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me. BOSWELL. See post, Oct. 12, note. 3 St. Matthew, v. 44.

It is odd that Boswell did not suspect the parson, who, no doubt, had learnt the evening before from Mr. Keith that the two travellers After

August 29.]

Macbeth's castle.

147

After church we walked down to the Quay. We then went to Macbeth's castle'. I had a romantick satisfaction in seeing Dr. Johnson actually in it. It perfectly corresponds with Shakspear's description, which Sir Joshua Reynolds has so happily illustrated, in one of his notes on our immortal poet':

"This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle sense,' &c.'

Just as we came out of it, a raven perched on one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I repeated

would be present at his sermon. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 283) says that one day at Sir Joshua's dinner-table, when his host praised Malone very highly for his laborious edition of Shakespeare, he (Northcote) 'rather hastily replied, “What a very despicable creature must that man be who thus devotes himself, and makes another man his god;" when Boswell, who sat at my elbow, and was not in my thoughts at the time, cried out "Oh! Sir Joshua, then that is me!"' 1 Johnson (Works, ix. 23) more cautiously says:- Here is a castle, called the castle of Macbeth.'

2.

This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks that where those birds most breed and haunt the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakespeare asked himself, what is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented. This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestick life.' Johnson's Shakespeare. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 144-151) quotes other notes by Reynolds.

' In the original senses. Act i. sc. 6.

'The

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Words coined by Johnson.

The raven himself is hoarse,

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements'.'

[August 29.

We dined at Mr. Keith's. Mrs. Keith was rather too attentive to Dr. Johnson, asking him many questions about his drinking only water. He repressed that observation, by saying to me, 'You may remember that Lady Errol took no notice of this.'

Dr. Johnson has the happy art (for which I have heard my father praise the old Earl of Aberdeen) of instructing himself, by making every man he meets tell him something of what he knows best. He led Keith to talk to him of the Excise in Scotland, and, in the course of conversation, mentioned that his friend Mr. Thrale, the great brewer, paid twenty thousand pounds a year to the revenue; and that he had four casks, each of which holds sixteen hundred barrels, -above a thousand hogsheads.

After this there was little conversation that deserves to be remembered. I shall therefore here again glean what I have omitted on former days. Dr. Gerrard, at Aberdeen, told us, that when he was in Wales, he was shewn a valley inhabited by Danes, who still retain their own language, and are quite a distinct people. Dr. Johnson thought it could not be true, or all the kingdom must have heard of it. He said to me, as we travelled, 'these people, Sir, that Gerrard talks of, may have somewhat of a peregrinity in their dialect, which relation has augmented to a different language.' I asked him if peregrinity was an English word: he laughed, and said, 'No.' I told him this was the second time that I had heard him coin a word'. When Foote broke his leg, I observed that it would make him fitter for taking off George Faulkner as Peter Paragraph', poor George having a wooden

1 Act i. sc. 5.

Boswell forgets scoundrelism, ante, p. 120, which, I suppose, John

son coined.

See ante, ii. 177, note 2. Peter Paragraph is one of the characters in Foote's Comedy of The Orators.

leg.

August 30.] The first day of equitation.'

149

leg. Dr. Johnson at that time said, 'George will rejoice at the depeditation of Foote;' and when I challenged that word, laughed, and owned he had made it, and added that he had not made above three or four in his Dictionary'.

Having conducted Dr. Johnson to our inn, I begged permission to leave him for a little, that I might run about and pay some short visits to several good people of Inverness. He said to me, 'You have all the old-fashioned principles, good and bad.' I acknowledge I have. I acknowledge I have. That of attention to relations in the remotest degree, or to worthy persons, in every state whom I have once known, I inherit from my father. It gave me much satisfaction to hear every body at Inverness speak of him with uncommon regard. Mr. Keith and Mr. Grant, whom we had seen at Mr. M'Aulay's, supped with us at the inn. We had roasted kid, which Dr. Johnson had never tasted before. He relished it much.

MONDAY, AUGUST 30.

This day we were to begin our equitation, as I said; for I would needs make a word too. It is remarkable, that my noble, and to me most constant friend, the Earl of Pembroke', (who, if there is too much ease on my part, will please to pardon what his benevolent, gay, social intercourse, and lively correspondence have insensibly produced,) has since hit upon the very same word. The title of the first edition of his lordship's very useful book was, in simple terms, A Method of breaking Horses and teaching Soldiers to ride. The title of the second edition is, ' MILITARY EQUITATION'.'

'When upon the subject of this peregrinity, he told me some particulars concerning the compilation of his Dictionary, and concerning his throwing off Lord Chesterfield's patronage, of which very erroneous accounts have been circulated. These particulars, with others which he afterwards gave me,-as also his celebrated letter to Lord Chesterfield, which he dictated to me,-I reserve for his Life. BosWELL. See ante, i. 256, 303.

See ante, ii. 374, 426, and v. 18.

'It is the third edition, published in 1778, that first bears this title. The first edition was published in 1761, and the second in 1762.

We

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The road along Lochness.

[August 30. We might have taken a chaise to Fort Augustus, but, had we not hired horses at Inverness, we should not have found them afterwards: so we resolved to begin here to ride. We had three horses, for Dr. Johnson, myself, and Joseph, and one which carried our portmanteaus, and two Highlanders who walked along with us, John Hay and Lauchland Vass, whom Dr. Johnson has remembered with credit in his JOURNEY', though he has omitted their names. Dr. Johnson rode very well.

About three miles beyond Inverness, we saw, just by the road, a very complete specimen of what is called a Druid's temple. There was a double circle, one of very large, the other of smaller stones. Dr. Johnson justly observed, that 'to go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.'

It was a delightful day. Lochness, and the road upon the side of it, shaded with birch trees, and the hills above it, pleased us much. The scene was as sequestered and agreeably wild as could be desired, and for a time engrossed all our attention'.

To see Dr. Johnson in any new situation is always an interesting object to me; and, as I saw him now for the first time on horseback, jaunting about at his ease in quest of pleasure and novelty, the very different occupations of his former laborious life, his admirable productions, his London, his Rambler, &c. &c., immediately presented themselves to

1 ́One of them was a man of great liveliness and activity, of whom his companion said that he would tire any horse in Inverness. Both of them were civil and ready-handed. Civility seems part of the national character of Highlanders.' Works, ix. 25.

* The way was very pleasant; the rock out of which the road was cut was covered with birch trees, fern, and heath. The lake below was beating its bank by a gentle wind. . . . In one part of the way we had trees on both sides for perhaps half a mile. Such a length of shade, perhaps, Scotland cannot shew in any other place.' Piozzi Letters, i. 123. The travellers must have passed close by the cottage where James Mackintosh was living, a child of seven.

my