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But my praise may be supposed partial; and therefore I shall insert two testimonies, not liable to that objection, both written by gentlemen of Scotland, to whose opinions I am confident the highest respect will be paid, Lord Hailes', and Mr. Dempster'.

'I have received much pleasure and much instruction, from perusing The Journey to the Hebrides.

'I admire the elegance and variety of description, and the lively picture of men and manners. I always approve of the moral, often I love the benevolence of the authour. 'They who search for faults, may possibly find them in this, as well as in every other work of literature.

of the political, reflections.

'For example, the friends of the old family say that the era of planting is placed too late, at the Union of the two kingdoms3. I am known to be no friend of the old family; yet I would place the æra of planting at the Restoration; after the murder of Charles I. had been expiated in the anarchy which succeeded it.

'Before the Restoration, few trees were planted, unless by the monastick drones: their successors, (and worthy patriots they were,) the barons, first cut down the trees, and then sold the estates. The gentleman at St. Andrews, who said that there were but two trees in Fife', ought to have added, that the elms of Balmerino were sold within these twenty years, to make pumps for the fire-engines.

'In J. Major de Gestis Scotorum, L. i. C. 2. last edition, there is a singular passage :

""Davidi Cranstoneo conterraneo, dum de prima theologiæ licentia foret, duo ei consocii et familiares, et mei cum eo in artibus auditores, scilicet Jacobus Almain Senonensis, et Petrus Bruxcellensis, Prædicatoris ordinis, in Sorbonæ curia die Sorbonico commilitonibus suis publice objecerunt, quod pane avenaceo plebeii Scoti, sicut a quodam religioso intellexerant, vescebantur, ut virum, quem

1 See ante, p. 54.

2 See ante, i. 473, 513, note 2, and ii. 347. ''It may be doubted whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.' Johnson's Works, ix. 8. • See ante, p. 78.

"Lord Balmerino's estate was forfeited to the Crown on his conviction for high treason in 1746 (ante, i. 208).

cholericum

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Mr. Dempster's letter to Boswell.

cholericum noverant, honestis salibus tentarent, qui hoc inficiari tanquam patriæ dedecus nisus est."

'Pray introduce our countryman, Mr. Licentiate David Cransston, to the acquaintance of Mr. Johnson.

'The syllogism seems to have been this:

"They who feed on oatmeal are barbarians;

But the Scots feed on oatmeal:

'I cannot omit a moment to return you my best thanks for the entertainment you have furnished me, my family, and guests, by the perusal of Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands ;— and now for my sentiments of it. I was well entertained. His descriptions are accurate and vivid. He carried me on the Tour along with him. I am pleased with the justice he has done to your humour and vivacity. "The noise of the wind being all its own," is a bon mot, that it would have been a pity to have omitted, and a robbery not to have ascribed to its author`.

'There is nothing in the book, from beginning to end, that a Scotchman need to take amiss'. What he says of the country is true, and his observations on the people are what must naturally occur to a sensible, observing, and reflecting inhabitant of a convenient Metropolis, where a man on thirty pounds a year may be better accommodated with all the little wants of life, than Col or Sir Allan. He reasons candidly about the second sight; but I wish he had enquired more, before he ventured to say he even doubted of the possibility of such an unusual and useless deviation from all the known laws of nature. The notion of the second sight I

''I know not that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it.' Johnson's Works, ix. 122. See ante, p. 346.

Mr. Dempster's letter to Boswell.

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consider as a remnant of superstitious ignorance and credulity, which a philosopher will set down as such, till the contrary is clearly proved, and then it will be classed among the other certain, though unaccountable parts of our nature, like dreams', and-I do not know what.

'In regard to the language, it has the merit of being all his own. Many words of foreign extraction are used, where, I believe, common ones would do as well, especially on familiar occasions. Yet I believe he could not express himself so forcibly in any other stile. I am charmed with his researches concerning the Erse language, and the antiquity of their manuscripts. I am quite convinced; and I shall rank Ossian, and his Fingals and Oscars, amongst the Nursery Tales, not the true history of our country, in all time to

come.

'Upon the whole, the book cannot displease, for it has no pretensions. The author neither says he is a Geographer, nor an Antiquarian, nor very learned in the History of Scotland, nor a Naturalist, nor a Fossilist". The manners of the people, and the face of the country, are all he attempts to describe, or seems to have thought of. Much were it to be wished, that they who have travelled into more remote, and of course, more curious, regions, had all possessed his good sense. Of the state of learning, his observations on Glasgow University3 shew he has formed a very sound judgement. He understands our climate too, and he has accurately observed the changes, however slow and imperceptible to us, which Scotland has undergone, in consequence of the blessings of liberty and internal peace. I could have drawn my pen through the story of the old woman at St. Andrews, being the only silly thing in the book. He has taken the opportunity of ingrafting

seeing things out of sight is local and commonly useless. It is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit.' Johnson's Works, ix. 106.

To the confidence of these objections it may be replied... that the second sight is only wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no more difficulty than dreams.' Ib.

* The fossilist of last century is the geologist of this. Neither term is in Johnson's Dictionary, but Johnson in his Journey (Works, ix. 45) speaks of Mr. Janes the fossilist.'

• Ib. p. 6. I do not see anything silly in the story. It is however better told in a letter to Mrs. Thrale. Piozzi Letters, i. 112.

V.-30

into

466

Mr. Dempster's letter to Boswell.

into the work several good observations, which I dare say he had made upon men and things, before he set foot on Scotch ground, by which it is considerably enriched'. A long journey, like a tall May-pole, though not very beautiful itself, yet is pretty enough, when ornamented with flowers and garlands: it furnishes a sort of cloak-pins for hanging the furniture of your mind upon; upon; and whoever sets out upon a journey, without furnishing his mind previously with much study and useful knowledge, erects a May-pole in December, and puts up very useless cloak-pins2.

'I hope the book will induce many of his countrymen to make the same jaunt, and help to intermix the more liberal part of them still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Scotch: who certainly would never have formed those combinations which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners. They would find us not deficient, at least in point of hospitality, and they would be ashamed ever after to abuse us in the mass.

'So much for the Tour. I have now, for the first time in my life, passed a winter in the country; and never did three months roll on with more swiftness and satisfaction. I used not only to wonder at, but pity, those whose lot condemned them to winter any where but in either of the capitals. But every place has its charms to a cheerful mind. I am busy planting and taking measures for opening the summer campaign in farming; and I find I have an excellent resource, when revolutions in politicks perhaps, and revolutions of the sun for certain, will make it decent for me to retreat behind the ranks of the more forward in life.

'I am glad to hear the last was a very busy week with you. I see you as counsel in some causes which must have opened a charming field for your humourous vein. As it is more uncommon, so I verily believe it is more useful than the more serious exercise

'Mr. Orme, one of the ablest historians of this age, is of the same opinion. He said to me,' There are in that book thoughts, which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished-like pebbles rolled in the ocean.' BOSWELL. BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 343, and iii. 322.

Johnson (Works, ix. 158) mentions 'a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it.' See ante, i1. 351, 356.

of

Rasay's letter to Boswell.

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of reason; and, to a man who is to appear in publick, more eclat is to be gained, sometimes more money too, by a bon-mot, than a learned speech. It is the fund of natural humour which Lord North possesses, that makes him so much the favourite of the house, and so able, because so amiable, a leader of a party'.

'I have now finished my Tour of Seven Pages. In what remains, I beg leave to offer my compliments, and those of ma tres chere femme, to you and Mrs. Boswell. Pray unbend the busy brow, and frolick a little in a letter to,

'My dear Boswell,

'Your affectionate friend,

'GEORGE DEMPSTER".'

I shall also present the publick with a correspondence with the Laird of Rasay, concerning a passage in the Fourney to the Western Islands, which shews Dr Johnson in a very amiable light.

'DEAR SIR,

'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'Rasay, April 10, 1775.

'I take this occasion of returning you my most hearty thanks for the civilities shewn to my daughter by you and Mrs. Boswell. Yet, though she has informed me that I am under this obligation, I should very probably have deferred troubling you with making my acknowledgments at present, if I had not seen Dr. Johnson's Fourney to the Western Isles, in which he has been pleased to make a very friendly mention of my family, for which I am surely obliged to him, as being more than an equivalent for the reception you and he met with. Yet there is one paragraph I should have been glad he had omitted, which I am sure was owing to misinformation; that is, that I had acknowledged M'Leod to be my chief, though my ancestors disputed the pre-eminence for a long tract of time.

Every reader will, I am sure, join with me in warm admiration of the truly patriotic writer of this letter. I know not which most to applaud-that good sense and liberality of mind, which could see and admit the defects of his native country, to which no man is a more zealous friend; - or that candour, which induced him to give just praise to the minister whom he honestly and strenuously opposed. BOSWELL.

'I never