156 us. Life of a sailor. [August 31. After dinner, M'Queen sat by us awhile, and talked with 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 pounds, was now raised to twenty pounds. That he could pay 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 choose to continue in it 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 1 'From him we first heard of the general dissatisfaction which is now driving the Highlanders into the other hemisphere; and when I asked him whether they would stay at home if they were well treated, he answered with indignation, that no man willingly left his native country.' Johnson's Works, ix. 33. See ante, p. 29. 2 The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.' Ib. v. 49. 'Four years later, three years after Goldsmith's death, Johnson 'observed in Lord Scarsdale's dressing-room Goldsmith's Animated Nature; and said, "Here's our friend. The poor doctor would have been happy to hear of this." Ante, iii. 183. a jail; August 31.] Cocker's ARITHMETIC. 157 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 landiord'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'. 'See ante, i. 403, and ii. 501, and post, Sept. 23. Mackintosh says: 'Johnson's idea that a ship was a prison with the danger of drowning is taken from Endymion Porter's Consolation to Howell on his imprisonment in the Fleet, and was originally suggested by the pun.' Life of Mackintosh, i. 83. The passage to which he refers is found in Howell's letter of Jan. 2, 1646 (book ii. letter 39), in which he writes to Porter: You go on to prefer my captivity in this Fleet to that of a voyager at sea, in regard that he is subject to storms and springing of leaks, to pirates and picaroons, with other casualties.' 2 See ante, iii. 274. 'This book has given rise to much enquiry, 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 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.' BOSWELL. Johnson thus mentions his gift: 'I presented her with a book which I happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to think that she forgets me.' Works, ix. 32. The first edition of Cocker's Arithmetic was published about 1660. Brit. Mus. Cata. Though Johnson says that 'a book of science is inexhaustible,' yet in The Rambler, No. The 158 The inn at Glenmorison. [August 31. The room had some deals laid across the joists, as a kind of ceiling. 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 lie down with our 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 style 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 HOUYHNHUMS:— '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 Mrs. Piozzi 154, he asserts that 'the principles of arithmetick and geometry may be comprehended by a close attention in a few days.' says (Anec. p. 77) that 'when Mr. Johnson felt his fancy disordered, his constant recurrence was to arithmetic; and one day that he was confined to his chamber, and I enquired what he had been doing to divert himself, he shewed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it; no other indeed than that the national debt, computing it at £180,000,000, would, if converted into silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of the whole earth.' See ante, iii. 235, and iv. 197, note 2. 1 Swift's Works (1803), xxiv. 63. Sept. 1.] The traveller's groundless fears. 159 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. 'Ay, 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, SEPTEMBER I. 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 him sound asleep in his miserable stye, as I may call it, with a coloured handkerchief tied round his head. With difficulty could I awaken him. It reminded me of Henry the Fourth's fine soliloquy on sleep; for there was ''We told the soldiers how kindly we had been treated at the garrison, and, as we were enjoying the benefit of their labours, begged leave to shew our gratitude by a small present . . . They had the true military impatience of coin in their pockets, and had marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought. Having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their good-will we went to them, where they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift.' Works, ix. 31-2 here 160 The battle of Culloden. [Sept. 1. 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 could not refrain from 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. 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 1 'Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 2 Henry IV, act iii. sc. 1. * Spain, in 1719, sent a strong force under the Duke of Ormond to Scotland in behalf of the Chevalier. Owing to storms only a few hundred men landed. These were joined by a large body of Highlanders, but being attacked by General Wightman, the clansmen dispersed and the Spaniards surrendered. Smollett's England, ed. 1800, ii. 382. Boswell mentions this ante, i. 48, as a proof of Johnson's 'perceptive quickness.' 3 called |