THE
JOURNAL
OF A
TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES
WITH
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
Dr. Johnson had for many years given me hopes that we should go
together, and visit the Hebrides[9]. Martin's Account of those islands
had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a system
of life almost totally different from what we had been accustomed to
see; and, to find simplicity and wildness, and all the circumstances of
remote time or place, so near to our native great island, was an object
within the reach of reasonable curiosity. Dr. Johnson has said in his
_Journey_[10] 'that he scarcely remembered how the wish to visit the
Hebrides was excited;' but he told me, in summer, 1763[11], that his
father put Martin's Account into his hands when he was very young, and
that he was much pleased with it. We reckoned there would be some
inconveniencies and hardships, and perhaps a little danger; but these we
were persuaded were magnified in the imagination of every body. When I
was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design to Voltaire. He looked at
me, as if I had talked of going to the North Pole, and said, 'You do not
insist on my accompanying you?'--'No, Sir,'--'Then I am very willing
you should go.' I was not afraid that our curious expedition would be
prevented by such apprehensions; but I doubted that it would not be
possible to prevail on Dr. Johnson to relinquish, for some time, the
felicity of a London life, which, to a man who can enjoy it with full
intellectual relish, is apt to make existence in any narrower sphere
seem insipid or irksome. I doubted that he would not be willing to come
down from his elevated state of philosophical dignity; from a
superiority of wisdom among the wise, and of learning among the learned;
and from flashing his wit upon minds bright enough to reflect it.
He had disappointed my expectations so long, that I began to despair;
but in spring, 1773, he talked of coming to Scotland that year with so
much firmness, that I hoped he was at last in earnest. I knew that, if
he were once launched from the metropolis he would go forward very well;
and I got our common friends there to assist in setting him afloat. To
Mrs. Thrale in particular, whose enchantment over him seldom failed, I
was much obliged. It was, '_I'll give thee a wind._'-' _Thou art
kind._[12]'--To _attract_ him, we had invitations from the chiefs
Macdonald and Macleod; and, for additional aid, I wrote to Lord
Elibank[13], Dr. William Robertson, and Dr. Beattie.
To Dr. Robertson, so far as my letter concerned the present subject, I
wrote as follows:
'Our friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, is in great health and spirits; and, I
do think, has a serious resolution to visit Scotland this year. The more
attraction, however, the better; and therefore, though I know he will be
happy to meet you there, it will forward the scheme, if, in your answer
to this, you express yourself concerning it with that power of which you
are so happily possessed, and which may be so directed as to operate
strongly upon him.'
His answer to that part of my letter was quite as I could have wished.
It was written with the address and persuasion of the historian of
America. 'When I saw you last, you gave us some hopes that you might
prevail with Mr. Johnson to make out that excursion to Scotland, with
the expectation of which we have long flattered ourselves. If he could
order matters so, as to pass some time in Edinburgh, about the close of
the summer session, and then visit some of the Highland scenes, I am
confident he would be pleased with the grand features of nature in many
parts of this country: he will meet with many persons here who respect
him, and some whom I am persuaded he will think not unworthy of his
esteem. I wish he would make the experiment. He sometimes cracks his
jokes upon us; but he will find that we can distinguish between the
stabs of malevolence, and _the rebukes of the righteous, which are like
excellent oil[14], and break not the head[15]_. Offer my best
compliments to him, and assure him that I shall be happy to have the
satisfaction of seeing him under my roof.
To Dr. Beattie I wrote, 'The chief intention of this letter is to inform
you, that I now seriously believe Mr. Samuel Johnson will visit Scotland
this year: but I wish that every power of attraction may be employed to
secure our having so valuable an acquisition, and therefore I hope you
will without delay write to me what I know you think, that I may read it
to the mighty sage, with proper emphasis, before I leave London, which I
must do soon. He talks of you with the same warmth that he did last
year[16]. We are to see as much of Scotland as we can, in the months of
August and September. We shall not be long of being at Marischal
College[17]. He is particularly desirous of seeing some of the
Western Islands.'
Dr. Beattie did better: _ipse venit_. He was, however, so polite as to
wave his privilege of _nil mihi rescribas[18]_, and wrote from
Edinburgh, as follows:--'Your very kind and agreeable favour of the
20th of April overtook me here yesterday, after having gone to Aberdeen,
which place I left about a week ago. I am to set out this day for
London, and hope to have the honour of paying my respects to Mr. Johnson
and you, about a week or ten days hence. I shall then do what I can, to
enforce the topick you mention; but at present I cannot enter upon it,
as I am in a very great hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within
an hour or two.'
He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the
northern scale. But, indeed, Mr. Johnson loved all that he heard, from
one whom he tells us, in his _Lives of the Poets_, Gray found 'a poet, a
philosopher, and a good man[19].'
My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some time.
The reason will appear, when we come to the isle of _Sky_[20]. I shall
then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself
and Mr. Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own
letters, as I relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is valuable
belonging to others, than for their own sake.
Luckily Mr. Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers[21], who was about to sail
for the East-Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at
Newcastle, and he conducted Dr. Johnson to that town. Mr. Scott, of
University College, Oxford, (now Dr. Scott[22], of the Commons,)
accompanied him from thence to Edinburgh, With such propitious convoys
did he proceed to my native city. But, lest metaphor should make it be
supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he travelled
in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his most favourite
amusements[23].
Dr. Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and
literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally
known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here
to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a
sincere and zealous Christian, of high church of England and monarchical
principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady
and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both
from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the
Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to
please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but
of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast
and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated
with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He
united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave
him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or
wide, as he saw best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the
greatest sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of
declamation; but he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he
sometimes talked for victory[24]; he was too conscientious to make
errour permanent and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He was
conscious of his superiority. He loved praise when it was brought to
him; but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of
flattery[25]. His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been
perpetually a poet. It has been often remarked, that in his poetical
pieces, which it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent,
his style is easier than in his prose. There is deception in this: it is
not easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may dance
with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking, in the common step, are
awkward. He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of which
darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his
whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment,
when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself
in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but
not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief
of the marvellous and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the
evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate
utterance, which no doubt gave some additional weight to the sterling
metal of his conversation[26]. His person was large, robust, I may say
approaching to the gigantick, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His
countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat
disfigured by the scars of that _evil_, which, it was formerly imagined,
the _royal touch_[27] could cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year,
and was become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been
somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the
deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and
accurate[28]. His head, and sometimes also his body shook with a kind of
motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently
disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions[29], of the nature of
that distemper called _St. Vitus's dance_. He wore a full suit of plain
brown clothes, with twisted hair-buttons[30] of the same colour, a
large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings, and
silver buckles. Upon this tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a
very wide brown cloth great coat, with pockets which might have almost
held the two volumes of his folio _Dictionary_; and he carried in his
hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for mentioning
such minute particulars. Every thing relative to so great a man is worth
observing. I remember Dr. Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at
Glasgow[31], told us he was glad to know that Milton wore latchets in
his shoes, instead of buckles. When I mention the oak stick, it is but
letting _Hercules_ have his club; and, by-and-by, my readers will find
this stick will bud, and produce a good joke[32].
This imperfect sketch of 'the COMBINATION and the _form_[33]' of that
Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and after
whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased ALMIGHTY GOD to
call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the fancy of my
readers the capital object of the following journal, in the course of
which I trust they will attain to a considerable degree of
acquaintance with him.
His prejudice against Scotland[34] was announced almost as soon as he
began to appear in the world of Letters. In his _London_, a poem, are
the following nervous lines:--
'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land?
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?
There none are swept by sudden fate away;
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.'
The truth is, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself to
look upon all nations but his own as barbarians[35]: not only Hibernia,
and Scotland, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the same
poem. If he was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was
because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in
England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and
because he could not but see in them that nationality which I believe no
liberal-minded Scotsman will deny. He was indeed, if I may be allowed
the phrase, at bottom much of a _John Bull_[36]; much of a blunt _true
born Englishman_[37]. There was a stratum of common clay under the rock
of marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating[38]; and he had a
great deal of that quality called _humour_, which gives an oiliness and
a gloss to every other quality.
I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world.--In my
travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I
never felt myself from home; and I sincerely love 'every kindred and
tongue and people and nation[39].' I subscribe to what my late truly
learned and philosophical friend Mr. Crosbie[40] said, that the English
are better animals than the Scots; they are nearer the sun; their blood
is richer, and more mellow: but when I humour any of them in an
outrageous contempt of Scotland, I fairly own I treat them as children.
And thus I have, at some moments, found myself obliged to treat even
Dr. Johnson.
To Scotland however he ventured; and he returned from it in great good
humour, with his prejudices much lessened, and with very grateful
feelings of the hospitality with which he was treated; as is evident
from that admirable work, his _Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland_, which, to my utter astonishment, has been misapprehended,
even to rancour, by many of my countrymen. To have the company of
Chambers and Scott, he delayed his journey so long, that the court of
session, which rises on the eleventh of August, was broke up before he
got to Edinburgh[41].
On Saturday the fourteenth of August, 1773, late in the evening, I
received a note from him, that he was arrived at Boyd's inn[42], at the
head of the Canongate. I went to him directly. He embraced me cordially;
and I exulted in the thought, that I now had him actually in Caledonia.
Mr. Scott's amiable manners, and attachment to our _Socrates_, at once
united me to him. He told me that, before I came in, the Doctor had
unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish cleanliness[43]. He then drank
no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made sweeter; upon
which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump of sugar, and
put it into it. The Doctor, in indignation, threw it out of the window.
Scott said, he was afraid he would have knocked the waiter down. Mr.
Johnson told me, that such another trick was played him at the house of
a lady in Paris[44]. He was to do me the honour to lodge under my roof.
I regretted sincerely that I had not also a room for Mr. Scott. Mr.
Johnson and I walked arm-in-arm up the High=street, to my house in
James's court[45]: it was a dusky night: I could not prevent his being
assailed by the evening effluvia of Edinburgh. I heard a late baronet,
of some distinction in the political world in the beginning of the
present reign, observe, that 'walking the streets of Edinburgh at night
was pretty perilous, and a good deal odoriferous.' The peril is much
abated, by the care which the magistrates have taken to enforce the city
laws against throwing foul water from the windows[46]; but from the
structure of the houses in the old town, which consist of many stories,
in each of which a different family lives, and there being no covered
sewers, the ordour still continues. A zealous Scotsman would have wished
Mr. Johnson to be without one of his five senses upon this occasion. As
we marched slowly along, he grumbled in my ear, 'I smell you in the
dark[47]!' But he acknowledged that the breadth of the street, and the
loftiness of the buildings on each side made a noble appearance[48].
My wife had tea ready for him, which it is well known he delighted to
drink at all hours, particularly when sitting up late, and of which his
able defence against Mr. Jonas Hanway[49] should have obtained him a
magnificent reward from the East-India Company. He shewed much
complacency upon finding that the mistress of the house was so attentive
to his singular habit; and as no man could be more polite when he chose
to be so, his address to her was most courteous and engaging; and his
conversation soon charmed her into a forgetfulness of his external
appearance[50].
I did not begin to keep a regular full journal till some days after we
had set out from Edinburgh; but I have luckily preserved a good many
fragments of his _Memorabilia_ from his very first evening in Scotland.
We had, a little before this, had a trial for murder, in which the
judges had allowed the lapse of twenty years since its commission as a
plea in bar, in conformity with the doctrine of prescription in the
_civil_ law, which Scotland and several other countries in Europe have
adopted. He at first disapproved of this; but then he thought there was
something in it, if there had been for twenty years a neglect to
prosecute a crime which was _known_. He would not allow that a murder,
by not being _discovered_ for twenty years, should escape
punishment[51]. We talked of the ancient trial by duel. He did not think
it so absurd as is generally supposed; 'For (said he) it was only
allowed when the question was _in equilibrio_, as when one affirmed and
another denied; and they had a notion that Providence would interfere in
favour of him who was in the right. But as it was found that in a duel,
he who was in the right had not a better chance than he who was in the
wrong, therefore society instituted the present mode of trial, and gave
the advantage to him who is in the right.'
We sat till near two in the morning, having chatted a good while after
my wife left us. She had insisted, that to shew all respect to the Sage
she would give up her own bed-chamber to him and take a worse[52]. This
I cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations which
I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to accept of
me as her husband[53].
SUNDAY, AUGUST 15[54]
Mr. Scott came to breakfast, at which I introduced to Dr. Johnson and
him, my friend Sir William Forbes, now of Pitsligo[55]; a man of whom
too much good cannot be said; who, with distinguished abilities and
application in his profession of a Banker, is at once a good companion,
and a good christian; which I think is saying enough. Yet it is but
justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous illness, he was
watched with the anxious apprehension of a general calamity; day and
night his house was beset with affectionate enquiries; and, upon his
recovery, _Te deum_ was the universal chorus from the _hearts_ of his
countrymen. Mr. Johnson was pleased with my daughter Veronica[56],
then a child of about four months old. She had the appearance of
listening to him. His motions seemed to her to be intended for her
amusement; and when he stopped, she fluttered, and made a little
infantine noise, and a kind of signal for him to begin again. She would
be held close to him; which was a proof, from simple nature, that his
figure was not horrid. Her fondness for him endeared her still more to
me, and I declared she should have five hundred pounds of additional
fortune[57].
We talked of the practice of the law. Sir William Forbes said, he
thought an honest lawyer should never undertake a cause which he was
satisfied was not a just one. 'Sir, (said Mr. Johnson,) a lawyer has no
business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes,
unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it
honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the
judge. Consider, Sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is,
that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try
causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to
produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the
province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the
effect of evidence,--what shall be the result of legal argument. As it
rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own cause, lawyers are a
class of the community, who, by study and experience, have acquired the
art and power of arranging evidence, and of applying to the points at
issue what the law has settled. A lawyer is to do for his client all
that his client might fairly do for himself, if he could. If, by a
superiority of attention, of knowledge, of skill, and a better method of
communication, he has the advantage of his adversary, it is an
advantage to which he is entitled. There must always be some advantage,
on one side or other; and it is better that advantage should be had by
talents than by chance. Lawyers were to undertake no causes till they
were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a
trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined it might be
found a very just claim[58].' This was sound practical doctrine, and
rationally repressed a too refined scrupulosity[59] of conscience.
Emigration was at this time a common topick of discourse[60]. Dr.
Johnson regretted it as hurtful to human happiness: 'For (said he) it
spreads mankind, which weakens the defence of a nation, and lessens the
comfort of living. Men, thinly scattered, make a shift, but a bad shift,
without many things. A smith is ten miles off: they'll do without a nail
or a staple. A taylor is far from them: they'll botch their own clothes.
It is being concentrated which produces high convenience[61].'
Sir William Forbes, Mr. Scott, and I, accompanied Mr. Johnson to the
chapel[62], founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, for the Service of the
Church of England. The Reverend Mr. Carre, the senior clergyman,
preached from these words, 'Because the Lord reigneth, let the earth be
glad[63].' I was sorry to think Mr. Johnson did not attend to the
sermon, Mr. Carre's low voice not being strong enough to reach his
hearing. A selection of Mr. Carre's sermons has, since his death, been
published by Sir William Forbes[64], and the world has acknowledged
their uncommon merit. I am well assured Lord Mansfield has pronounced
them to be excellent.
Here I obtained a promise from Lord Chief Baron Orde[65], that he would
dine at my house next day. I presented Mr. Johnson to his Lordship, who
politely said to him, I have not the honour of knowing you; but I hope
for it, and to see you at my house. I am to wait on you to-morrow.' This
respectable English judge will be long remembered in Scotland, where he
built an elegant house, and lived in it magnificently. His own ample
fortune, with the addition of his salary, enabled him to be splendidly
hospitable. It may be fortunate for an individual amongst ourselves to
be Lord Chief Baron; and a most worthy man now has the office; but, in
my opinion, it is better for Scotland in general, that some of our
publick employments should be filled by gentlemen of distinction from
the south side of the Tweed, as we have the benefit of promotion in
England. Such an interchange would make a beneficial mixture of manners,
and render our union more complete. Lord Chief Baron Orde was on good
terms with us all, in a narrow country filled with jarring interests and
keen parties; and, though I well knew his opinion to be the same with my
own, he kept himself aloof at a very critical period indeed, when the
_Douglas cause_ shook the sacred security of _birthright_ in Scotland
to its foundation; a cause, which had it happened before the Union, when
there was no appeal to a British House of Lords, would have left the
great fortress of honours and of property in ruins[66]. When we got
