M'Crabie & M'Donald's coming,
M'Kenzie & M'Pherson's coming,
And the wild M'Craw's coming.
Little wat ye wha's coming,
Donald Gun and a's coming.'
Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, i. 152.
Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 198) writing on May 9, 1779, tells how
on May 1 'the French had attempted to land [on Jersey], but Lord
Seaforth's new-raised regiment of 700 Highlanders, assisted by some
militia and some artillery, made a brave stand and repelled the
intruders.'
[442] 'One of the men advised her, with the cunning that clowns never
can be without, to ask more; but she said that a shilling was enough. We
gave her half a crown, and she offered part of it again.' _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 133.
[443] Of this part of the journey Johnson wrote:--'We had very little
entertainment as we travelled either for the eye or ear. There are, I
fancy, no singing birds in the Highlands.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 135. It
is odd that he should have looked for singing birds on the first of
September.
[444] Act iii. sc. 4.
[445] 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.
[446] '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.
[447] 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.
[448] See _ante_, p. 89.
[449] See _ante_, ii. 169, note 2.
[450] 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 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.' 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 ---- ---- resided, 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.
[451]
'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
[452] See his Latin verses addressed to Dr. Johnson, in this APPENDIX.
BOSWELL.
[453] See _ante_, ii. 157.
[454] See _ante_, i. 449.
[455] See _ante_, ii. 99.
[456] See _ante_, iii 198, note 1.
[457] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation, that the inquirer is
kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation
knows less as he hears more.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 47. 'They are not
much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have
thought upon interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know what
they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be
false. Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the result of
his investigations was, that the answer to the second question was
commonly such as nullified the answer to the first.' _Ib._, p. 114.
[458] Mr. Carruthers, in his edition of Boswell's _Hebrides_, says (p.
xiv):--'The new management and high rents took the tacksmen, or larger
tenants, by surprise. They were indignant at the treatment they
received, and selling off their stock they emigrated to America. In the
twenty years from 1772 to 1792, sixteen vessels with emigrants sailed
from the western shores of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, containing
about 6400 persons, who carried with them in specie at least L38,400. A
desperate effort was made by the tacksmen on the estate of Lord
Macdonald. They bound themselves by a solemn oath not to offer for any
farm that might become vacant. The combination failed of its object, but
it appeared so formidable in the eyes of the "English-bred chieftain,"
that he retreated precipitately from Skye and never afterwards
returned.'
[459] Dr. Johnson seems to have forgotten that a Highlander going armed
at this period incurred the penalty of serving as a common soldier for
the first, and of transportation beyond sea for a second offence. And as
for 'calling out his clan,' twelve Highlanders and a bagpipe made a
rebellion. WALTER SCOTT.
[460] Mackintosh (_Life_ ii. 62) says that in Mme. du Deffand's
_Correspondence_ there is 'an extraordinary confirmation of the talents
and accomplishments of our Highland Phoenix, Sir James Macdonald. A
Highland chieftain, admired by Voltaire, could have been no
ordinary man.'
[461] This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowing
intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute
particulars concerning him must be interesting to many. I shall
therefore insert his two last letters to his mother, Lady Margaret
Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me.
'Rome, July 9th, 1766. 'My DEAR MOTHER, 'Yesterday's post brought me
your answer to the first letter in which I acquainted you of my illness.
Your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same I have always
experienced, and to which I have often owed my life. Indeed it never was
in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been
a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought
to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a
spectacle. I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to
give you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; but
I must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak and
miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my
physician. My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible
cause; and the palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomach
will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time.
So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little
remains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh
day of such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed;--I only recover
slower than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of
it is a dose of physick, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I am
not able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, and
remain always 'Your most sincerely affectionate son, 'J. MACDONALD.' He
grew gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as
follows from Frescati:--'MY DEAR MOTHER, 'Though I did not mean to
deceive you in my last letter from Rome, yet certainly you would have
very little reason to conclude of the very great and constant danger I
have gone through ever since that time. My life, which is still almost
entirely desperate, did not at that time appear to me so, otherwise I
should have represented, in its true colours, a fact which acquires very
little horror by that means, and comes with redoubled force by
deception. There is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I have
not had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight;
during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death, with as
much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admit
of. In case of the worst, the Abbe Grant will be my executor in this
part of the world, and Mr. Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has
been to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as
possible.' BOSWELL. Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 291), in 1779, thus
mentions this 'younger brother':--'Macdonald abused Lord North in very
gross, yet too applicable, terms; and next day pleaded he had been
drunk, recanted, and was all admiration and esteem for his Lordship's
talents and virtues.'
[462] See _ante_, iii. 85, and _post_, Oct. 28.
[463] Cheyne's English Malady, ed. 1733, p. 229.
[464] 'Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2. See
_ante_, iii. 350, where Boswell is reproached by Johnson with 'bringing
in gabble,' when he makes this quotation.
[465] VARIOUS READINGS. Line 2. In the manuscript, Dr. Johnson, instead
of _rupibus obsita_, had written _imbribus uvida_, and _uvida nubibus_,
but struck them both out. Lines 15 and 16. Instead of these two lines,
he had written, but afterwards struck out, the following:--
Parare posse, utcunque jactet
Grandiloquus nimis alta Zeno.
BOSWELL. In Johnson's _Works_, i. 167, these lines are given with some
variations, which perhaps are in part due to Mr. Langton, who, we are
told (_ante_, Dec. 1784), edited some, if not indeed all, of Johnson's
Latin poems.
[466] Cowper wrote to S. Rose on May 20, 1789:--'Browne was an
entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before;
this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much.'
Southey's _Cowper_, vi. 237. His _De Animi Immortalitate_ was published
in 1754. He died in 1760, aged fifty-four. See _ante_, ii. 339.
[467] Boswell, in one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_ante_, iv. 179)
says:--'I do fairly acknowledge that I love Drinking; that I have a
constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and that if
it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am afraid I
should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man.... Drinking is in
reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time
of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable
manner is one of the great arts of living. Were we so framed that it
were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep ourselves for ever
gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking would be the
_summum bonum_, the chief good, to find out which philosophers have been
so variously busied. But we know from humiliating experience that men
cannot be kept long in a state of elevated drunkenness.'
[468] That my readers may have my narrative in the style of the country
through which I am travelling, it is proper to inform them, that the
chief of a clan is denominated by his _surname_ alone, as M'Leod,
M'Kinnon, M'lntosh. To prefix _Mr._ to it would be a degradation from
_the_ M'Leod, &c. My old friend, the Laird of M'Farlane, the great
antiquary, took it highly amiss, when General Wade called him Mr.
M'Farlane. Dr. Johnson said, he could not bring himself to use this mode
of address; it seemed to him to be too familiar, as it is the way in
which, in all other places, intimates or inferiors are addressed. When
the chiefs have _titles_ they are denominated by them, as _Sir James
Grant_, _Sir Allan M'Lean_. The other Highland gentlemen, of landed
property, are denominated by their _estates_, as _Rasay_, _Boisdale_;
and the wives of all of them have the title of _ladies_. The _tacksmen_,
or principal tenants, are named by their farms, as _Kingsburgh_,
_Corrichatachin_; and their wives are called the _mistress_ of
Kingsburgh, the _mistress_ of Corrichatachin.--Having given this
explanation, I am at liberty to use that mode of speech which generally
prevails in the Highlands and the Hebrides. BOSWELL.
[469] See _ante_, iii. 275.
[470] Boswell implies that Sir A. Macdonald's table had not been
furnished plentifully. Johnson wrote:--'At night we came to a tenant's
house of the first rank of tenants, where we were entertained better
than at the landlord's.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 141.
[471] 'Little did I once think,' he wrote to her the same day, 'of
seeing this region of obscurity, and little did you once expect a
salutation from this verge of European life. I have now the pleasure of
going where nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees.' _Piozzi Letters_,
i. 120. About fourteen years since, I landed in Sky, with a party of
friends, and had the curiosity to ask what was the first idea on every
one's mind at landing. All answered separately that it was this Ode.
WALTER SCOTT.
[472] See Appendix B.
[473] 'I never was in any house of the islands, where I did not find
books in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them,
except one from which the family was removed.' Johnson's _Works_, ix.
50. He is speaking of 'the higher rank of the Hebridians,' for on p. 61
he says:--'The greater part of the islanders make no use of books.'
[474] There was a Mrs. Brooks, an actress, the daughter of a Scotchman
named Watson, who had forfeited his property by 'going out in the '45.'
But according to _The Thespian Dictionary_ her first appearance on the
stage was in 1786.
[475] Boswell mentions, _post_, Oct. 5, 'the famous Captain of
Clanranald, who fell at Sherrif-muir.'
[476] See _ante_, p. 95.
[477] By John Macpherson, D.D. See _post_, Sept. 13.
[478] Sir Walter Scott, when in Sky in 1814, wrote:--'We learn that most
of the Highland superstitions, even that of the second sight, are still
in force.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 305. See _.ante_, ii.
10, 318.
[479] Of him Johnson wrote:--'One of the ministers honestly told me that
he came to Sky with a resolution not to believe it.' _Works_, ix. 106.
[480] 'By the term _second sight_ seems to be meant a mode of seeing
superadded to that which nature generally bestows. In the Erse it is
called _Taisch_; which signifies likewise a spectre or a vision.'
_Johnson's Works_, ix. 105.
[481] Gray's _Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College_, 1. 44.
[482] A tonnage bounty of thirty shillings a ton was at this time given
to the owners of busses or decked vessels for the encouragement of the
white herring fishery. Adam Smith (_Wealth of Nations_, iv. 5) shews how
mischievous was its effect.
[483] The Highland expression for Laird of Rasay. BOSWELL.
[484] 'In Sky I first observed the use of brogues, a kind of artless
shoes, stitched with thongs so loosely, that, though they defend the
foot from stones, they do not exclude water.' Johnson's _Works_, ix 46.
[485] To evade the law against the tartan dress, the Highlanders used to
dye their variegated plaids and kilts into blue, green, or any single
colour. WALTER SCOTT.
[486] See _post_, Oct. 5.
[487] The Highlanders were all well inclined to the episcopalian form,
_proviso_ that the right _king_ was prayed for. I suppose Malcolm meant
to say, 'I will come to your church because you are honest folk,' viz.
_Jacobites_. WALTER SCOTT.
[488] See _ante_, i. 450, and ii. 291.
[489] Perhaps he was thinking of Johnson's letter of June 20, 1771
(_ante_, ii. 140), where he says:--'I hope the time will come when we
may try our powers both with cliffs and water.'
[490] 'The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancing
agitation.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142. 'The water was calm and the rowers
were vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant.' Johnson's
_Works_, ix. 54.
[491]
'Caught in the wild Aegean seas,
The sailor bends to heaven for ease.'
FRANCIS. Horace, 2, _Odes_, xvi. 1.
[492] See _ante_, iv. Dec. 9, 1784, note.
[493] Such spells are still believed in. A lady of property in Mull, a
friend of mine, had a few years since much difficulty in rescuing from
the superstitious fury of the people, an old woman, who used a _charm_
to injure her neighbour's cattle. It is now in my possession, and
consists of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and such like trash, wrapt
in a lump of clay. WALTER SCOTT.
[494] Sir Walter Scott, writing in Skye in 1814, says:--'Macleod and Mr.
Suter have both heard a tacksman of Macleod's recite the celebrated
Address to the Sun; and another person repeat the description of
Cuchullin's car. But all agree as to the gross infidelity of Macpherson
as a translator and editor.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 308.
[495] See _post_, Nov. 10.
[496] 'The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The
strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest-song,
in which all their voices were united.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 58.
[497] 'The money which he raises annually by rent from all his
dominions, which contain at least 50,000 acres, is not believed to
exceed L250; but as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sells
every year great numbers of cattle ... The wine circulates vigorously,
and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always at
hand.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142. 'Of wine and punch they are very
liberal, for they get them cheap; but as there is no custom-house on the
island, they can hardly be considered as smugglers.' _Ib_. p. 160.
'Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no
officer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impost
is obtained here at an easy rate.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 52.
[498] 'No man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they
call a _skalk_.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. p. 51.
[499] Alexander Macleod, of Muiravenside, advocate, became extremely
obnoxious to government by his zealous personal efforts to engage his
chief Macleod, and Macdonald of Sky, in the Chevalier's attempts of
1745. Had he succeeded, it would have added one third at least to the
Jacobite army. Boswell has oddly described _M'Cruslick_, the being whose
name was conferred upon this gentleman, as something between Proteus and
Don Quixote. It is the name of a species of satyr, or _esprit follet_, a
sort of mountain Puck or hobgoblin, seen among the wilds and mountains,
as the old Highlanders believed, sometimes mirthful, sometimes
mischievous. Alexander Macleod's precarious mode of life and variable
