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Boswell's letter to Rasay.

'I never had occasion to enter seriously on this argument with the present laird or his grandfather, nor could I have any temptation to such a renunciation from either of them. I acknowledge, the benefit of being chief of a clan is in our days of very little significancy, and to trace out the progress of this honour to the founder of a family, of any standing, would perhaps be a matter of some difficulty.

'The true state of the present case is this: the M'Leod family consists of two different branches; the M'Leods of Lewis, of which I am descended, and the M'Leods of Harris. And though the former have lost a very extensive estate by forfeiture in king James the Sixth's time, there are still several respectable families of it existing, who would justly blame me for such an unmeaning cession, when they all acknowledge me head of that family; which though in fact it be but an ideal point of honour, is not hitherto so far disregarded in our country, but it would determine some of my friends to look on me as a much smaller man than either they or myself judge me at present to be. I will, therefore, ask it as a favour of you to acquaint the Doctor with the difficulty he has brought me to. In travelling among rival clans, such a silly tale as this might easily be whispered into the ear of a passing stranger; but as it has no foundation in fact, I hope the Doctor will be so good as to take his own way in undeceiving the publick, I principally mean my friends and connections, who will be first angry at me, and next sorry to find such an instance of my littleness recorded in a book which has a very fair chance of being much read. I expect you will let me know what he will write you in return, and we here beg to make offer to you and Mrs. Boswell of our most respectful compliments.

'I am,
'Dear Sir,

'Your most obedient humble servant,

'JOHN M'LEOD.'

'DEAR SIR,

'TO THE LAIRD OF RASAY.

'London, May 8, 1775.

'The day before yesterday I had the honour to receive your letter, and I immediately communicated it to Dr. Johnson. He said he loved your spirit, and was exceedingly sorry that he had been the cause of the smallest uneasiness to you. There is not a more candid man in the world than he is, when properly addressed,

as

Boswell's letter to Rasay.

469

as you will see from his letter to you, which I now enclose. He has allowed me to take a copy of it, and he says you may read it to your clan, or publish it if you please. Be assured, Sir, that I shall take care of what he has entrusted to me, which is to have an acknowledgement of his errour inserted in the Edinburgh newspapers. You will, I dare say, be fully satisfied with Dr. Johnson's behaviour. He is desirous to know that you are; and therefore when you have read his acknowledgement in the papers, I beg you may write to me; and if you choose it, I am persuaded a letter from you to the Doctor also will be taken kind. I shall be at Edinburgh the week after next.

'Any civilities which my wife and I had in our power to shew to your daughter, Miss M'Leod, were due to her own merit, and were well repaid by her agreeable company. But I am sure I should be a very unworthy man if I did not wish to shew a grateful sense of the hospitable and genteel manner in which you were pleased to treat me. Be assured, my dear Sir, that I shall never forget your goodness, and the happy hours which I spent in Rasay.

'You and Dr. M'Leod were both so obliging as to promise me an account in writing, of all the particulars which each of you remember, concerning the transactions of 1745-6. Pray do not forget this, and be as minute and full as you can; put down every thing; I have a great curiosity to know as much as I can, authentically.

'I beg that you may present my best respects to Lady Rasay, my compliments to your young family, and to Dr. M'Leod; and my hearty good wishes to Malcolm, with whom I hope again to shake hands cordially. I have the honour to be,

'Dear Sir,

'Your obliged and faithful humble servant,
'JAMES BOSWELL.'

ADVERTISEMENT, written by Dr. Johnson, and inserted by his desire in the Edinburgh newspapers :-Referred to in the foregoing letter'.

'THE authour of the Journey to the Western Islands, having related that the M'Leods of Rasay acknowledge the chieftainship or superiority of the M'Leods of Sky, finds that he has been misinformed

'The original MS. is now in my possession. BOSWELL.

ΟΥ

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or mistaken.

Johnson's letter to Rasay.

He means in a future edition to correct his errour1, and

wishes to be told of more, if more have been discovered!'

Dr. Johnson's letter was as follows:

'DEAR SIR,

'TO THE LAIRD OF RASAY.

'Mr. Boswell has this day shewn me a letter, in which you complain of a passage in The Journey to the Hebrides. My meaning is mistaken. I did not intend to I did not intend to say that you had personally made any cession of the rights of your house, or any acknowledgement of the superiority of M'Leod of Dunvegan. I only designed to express what I thought generally admitted, that the house of Rasay allowed the superiority of the house of Dunvegan. Even this I now find to be erroneous, and will therefore omit or retract it in the next edition.

'Though what I had said had been true, if it had been disagreeable to you, I should have wished it unsaid; for it is not my business to adjust precedence. As it is mistaken, I find myself disposed to correct, both by my respect for you, and my reverence for truth.

'As I know not when the book will be reprinted, I have desired Mr. Boswell to anticipate the correction in the Edinburgh papers. This is all that can be done.

The passage that gave offence was as follows:- Mr. Macleod is the proprietor of the islands of Raasay, Rona, and Fladda, and possesses an extensive district in Sky. The estate has not during four hundred years gained or lost a single acre. He acknowledges Macleod of Dunvegan as his chief, though his ancestors have formerly disputed the pre-eminence.' First edition p. 132. The second edition was not published till the year after Johnson's death. In it the passage remains unchanged. To it the following note was prefixed: 'Strand, Oct. 26, 1785. Since this work was printed off, the publisher, having been informed that the author some years ago had promised the Laird of Raasay to correct in a future edition a passage concerning him, thinks it a justice due to that gentleman to insert here the advertisement relative to this matter, which was published by Dr. Johnson's desire in the Edinburgh newspapers in the year 1775, and which has been lately reprinted in Mr. Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides!' (It is not unlikely that the publication of Boswell's Tour occasioned a fresh demand for Johnson's Journey.) In later editions all the words after a single acre' are silently struck out. Johnson's Works, ix. 55. See ante, ii. 439.

Sir W. Forbes's letter to Boswell.

471

'I hope I may now venture to desire that my compliments may be made, and my gratitude expressed, to Lady Rasay, Mr. Malcolm M'Leod, Mr. Donald M'Queen, and all the gentlemen and all the ladies whom I saw in the island of Rasay; a place which I remember with too much pleasure and too much kindness, not to be sorry that my ignorance, or hasty persuasion, should, for a single moment, have violated its tranquillity.

'I beg you all to forgive an undesigned and involuntary injury, and to consider me as

"Sir, your most obliged,

'London, May 6, 1775.'

'And most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON'.'

It would be improper for me to boast of my own labours; but I cannot refrain from publishing such praise as I received from such a man as Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, after the perusal of the original manuscript of my Journal'. "TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'MY DEAR SIR,

'Edinburgh, March 7, 1777.

'I ought to have thanked you sooner, for your very obliging letter, and for the singular confidence you are pleased to place in me, when you trust me with such a curious and valuable deposit as the papers you have sent me. Be assured I have a due sense

'Rasay was highly gratified, and afterwards visited and dined with. Dr. Johnson at his house in London. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on May 12, 1775-I have offended; and what is stranger, have justly offended, the nation of Rasay. If they could come hither, they would be as fierce as the Americans. Rasay has written to Boswell an account of the injury done him by representing his house as subordinate to that of Dunvegan. Boswell has his letter, and, I believe, copied my answer. I have appeased him, if a degraded chief can possibly be appeased: but it will be thirteen days-days of resentment and discontent-before my recantation can reach him. Many a dirk will imagination, during that interval, fix in my heart. I really question if at this time my life would not be in danger, if distance did not secure it. Boswell will find his way to Streatham before he goes, and will detail this great affair.' Piozzi Letters, i. 216.

' In like manner he communicated to Sir William Forbes part of his journal from which he made the Life of Johnson. Ante, iii. 237.

In justice both to Sir William Forbes, and myself, it is proper to

of

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Boswell's defence of himself.

of this favour, and shall faithfully and carefully return them to you. You may rely that I shall neither copy any part, nor permit the papers to be seen.

"They contain a curious picture of society, and form a journal on the most instructive plan that can possibly be thought of; for I am not sure that an ordinary observer would become so well acquainted either with Dr. Johnson, or with the manners of the Hebrides, by a personal intercourse, as by a perusal of your Journal. 'I am, very truly, 'Dear Sir,

'Your most obedient,

'And affectionate humble servant, 'WILLIAM FORBES.'

When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to 'that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns',' I feel an impression at once awful and tender.-Requiescant in pace!

It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I repeat the answer which I made to that friend:- Few, very few, need be afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the BON CHRETIEN??'

On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it we owe all those interesting apophthegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon,

mention, that the papers which were submitted to his perusal contained only an account of our Tour from the time that Dr. Johnson and I set out from Edinburgh (p. 57), and consequently did not contain the eulogium on Sir William Forbes, (p. 26), which he never saw till this book appeared in print; nor did he even know, when he wrote the above letter, that this Journal was to be published. BOSWELL. This note is not in the first edition.

1 Hamlet, act iii. sc. i.

'Both Nonpareil and Bon Chretien are in Johnson's Dictionary; Nonpareil is defined as a kind of apple, and Bon Chretien as a species of pear.

and

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