166 The wretched inn in Glenelg. [Sept. 1. As we passed the barracks at Bernéra, I looked at them wishfully, as soldiers have always every thing in the best order: but there was only a serjeant and a few men there. We came on to the inn at Glenelg. There was no provender for our horses; so they were sent to grass, with a man to watch them. A maid shewed us up stairs into a room damp and dirty, with bare walls, a variety of bad smells, a coarse black greasy fir table, and forms of the same kind; and out of a wretched bed started a fellow from his sleep, like Edgar in King Lear', 'Poor Tom's a cold'' This inn was furnished with not a single article that we could either eat or drink'; but Mr. Murchison, factor to the Laird of Macleod in Glenelg, sent us a bottle of rum and some sugar, with a polite message, to acquaint us, that he was very sorry that he did not hear of us till we had passed his house, otherwise he should have insisted on our sleeping there that night; and that, if he were not obliged to set Act iii. sc. 4. It is amusing to observe the different images which this being presented to Dr. Johnson and me. The Doctor, in his Journey, compares him to a Cyclops. BoSWELL. 'Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.' Works, ix. 44. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale: When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed where one of us was to lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be got.' Piozzi Letters, i. 136. Macaulay (Essays, ed. 1843, i. 404) says:- It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the Journey to the Hebrides is the translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions.' Macaulay thereupon quotes these two passages. See ante, under Aug. 29, 1783. We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with my supper.' Piozzi Letters, i. 136. Goldsmith, who in his student days had been in Scotland, thus writes of a Scotch inn:- Vile entertainment is served up, complained of, and sent down; up comes worse, and that also is changed, and every change makes our wretched cheer more unsavoury. Present State of Polite Learning, ch. 12. out Sept. 2.] Johnson relents. 167 out for Inverness early next morning, he would have waited upon us. Such extraordinary attention from this gentleman, to entire strangers, deserves the most honourable commemoration. Our bad accommodation here made me uneasy, and almost fretful. Dr. Johnson was calm. I said, he was so from vanity. JOHNSON. No, Sir, it is from philosophy.' It pleased me to see that the Rambler could practise so well his own lessons. I resumed the subject of my leaving him on the road, and endeavoured to defend it better. He was still violent upon that head, and said, ' Sir, had you gone on, I was thinking that I should have returned with you to Edinburgh, and then have parted from you, and never spoken to you more.' I sent for fresh hay, with which we made beds for ourselves, each in a room equally miserable. Like Wolfe, we had a choice of difficulties'. Dr. Johnson made things easier by comparison. At M'Queen's, last night, he observed that few were so well lodged in a ship. To-night he said, we were better than if we had been upon the hill. He lay down buttoned up in his great coat. I had my sheets spread on the hay, and my clothes and great coat laid over me, by way of blankets. THURSDAY, September 2. I had slept ill. Dr. Johnson's anger had affected me much. I considered that, without any bad intention, I might suddenly forfeit his friendship; and was impatient to see him this morning. I told him how uneasy he had made me, by what he had said, and reminded him of his own remark at Aberdeen, upon old friendships being hastily broken off. He owned he had spoken to me in passion; that he would not have done what he threatened; and that, if he had, 1 General Wolfe, in his letter from Head-quarters on Sept. 2, 1759, eleven days before his death, wrote: In this situation there is such a choice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss how to determine.' Ann. Reg. 1759, p. 246. he 168 Sir Alexander Macdonald. [Sept. 2. he should have been ten times worse than I; that forming intimacies, would indeed be 'limning the water',' were they liable to such sudden dissolution; and he added, 'Let's think no more on't.' BOSWELL. 'Well, then, Sir, I shall be easy. Remember, I am to have fair warning in case of any quarrel. You are never to spring a mine upon me. It was absurd in me to believe you.' JOHNSON. 'You deserved about as much, as to believe me from night to morning.' After breakfast, we got into a boat for Sky. It rained much when we set off, but cleared up as we advanced. One of the boatmen, who spoke English, said, that a mile at land was two miles at sea. I then observed, that from Glenelg to Armidale in Sky, which was our present course, and is called twelve, was only six miles: but this he could not understand. 'Well, (said Dr. Johnson,) never talk to me of the native good sense of the Highlanders. Here is a fellow who calls one mile two, and yet cannot comprehend that twelve such imaginary miles make in truth but six.' We reached the shore of Armidale before one o'clock. Sir Alexander M'Donald came down to receive us. He and his lady, (formerly Miss Bosville of Yorkshire',) were then in a house built by a tenant at this place, which is in the district of Slate, the family mansion here having been burned in Sir Donald Macdonald's time. 'The most ancient seat of the chief of the Macdonalds in See ante, ii. 194, note 2. 'See ante, p. 101. Boswell, in a note that he added to the second edition (see post, end of the Journal), says that he has omitted a few observations the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum.' In the first edition (p. 165) the next three paragraphs were as follows:- Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, and a festive entertainment, we had a small company, and cannot boast of our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my Journal, but I shall not trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend Sir Thomas (Wentworth) Blacket, Lady Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon the Sept. 2.] Sir Alexander Macdonald. 169 the isle of Sky was at Duntulm, where there are the remains of a stately castle. The principal residence of the family is now at Mugstot, at which there is a considerable building. Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald had come to Armidale in their way to Edinburgh, where it was necessary for them to be soon after this time. Armidale is situated on a pretty bay of the narrow sea, which flows between the main land of Scotland and the isle of Sky. In front there is a grand prospect of the rude being asked by him if the punch-bowl then upon the table was not a very handsome one, replied, "Yes-if it were full." 'Sir Alexander Macdonald having been an Eton scholar, Dr. Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was much diminished when he beheld him in the isle of Sky, where we heard heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. Dr. Johnson said, "It grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear to such disadvantage. This gentleman has talents, nay some learning; but he is totally unfit for this situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen. A strong-minded man, like his brother Sir James, may be improved by an English education; but in general they will be tamed into insignificance." 'I meditated an escape from this house the very next day; but Dr. Johnson resolved that we should weather it out till Monday.' re Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale :-'We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast. A boat was procured, and we launched into one of the straits of the Atlantick Ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where sided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified ... Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.' Piozzi Letters, i. 137. A little later he wrote:-'I have done thinking of ***** whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony, and given occasion to so many stories, that **** has some thoughts of collecting them, and making a novel of his life.' Ib. p. 198. The last of Rowlandson's Caricatures of Boswell's Journal is entitled Revising for the Second Edition. Macdonald is represented as seizing Boswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to the Journal that lies open at pages 168, 169. On the ground lie pages 165, 167, torn out. Boswell, in an agony of fear, is begging for mercy. mountains 170 Racked rents and emigration. [Sept. 3. mountains of Moidart and Knoidart'. Behind are hills gently rising and covered with a finer verdure than I expected to see in this climate, and the scene is enlivened by a number of little clear brooks. Sir Alexander Macdonald having been an Eton scholar', and being a gentleman of talents, Dr. Johnson had been very well pleased with him in London'. But my fellowtraveller and I were now full of the old Highland spirit, and were dissatisfied at hearing of racked rents and emigration, and finding a chief not surrounded by his clan. Dr. Johnson said, 'Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to to go farther south than Aberdeen. A strong-minded man, like Sir James Macdonald', may be improved by an English education; but in general, they will be tamed into insignificance.' We found here Mr. Janes of Aberdeenshire, a naturalist. Janes said he had been at Dr. Johnson's in London, with Ferguson the astronomer'. JOHNSON. 'It is strange that, in such distant places, I should meet with any one who knows me. I should have thought I might hide myself in Sky.' FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. This day proving wet, we should have passed our time very uncomfortably, had we not found in the house two chests of books, which we eagerly ransacked. After dinner, when I alone was left at table with the few Highland gentlemen who were of the company, having talked with very high respect of Sir James Macdonald, they were all so much affected as to shed tears. One of them was Mr. Donald 1 " 'Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan, Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him.' Clough's Bothie, p. 125. 'See his Latin verses addressed to Dr. Johnson, in the APPENDIX. BOSWELL. 'See ante, ii. 180. See ante, ii. 114. • See ante, i. 520. Macdonald, |