Mr. Keith breakfasted with us. Dr. Johnson expatiated rather too
strongly upon the benefits derived to Scotland from the Union[404], and
the bad state of our people before it. I am entertained with his copious
exaggeration upon that subject; but I am uneasy when people are by, who
do not know him as well as I do, and may be apt to think him
narrow-minded[405]. I therefore diverted the subject.
The English chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. The
altar was a bare fir table, with a coarse stool for kneeling on, covered
with a piece of thick sail-cloth doubled, by way of cushion. The
congregation was small. Mr. Tait, the clergyman, read prayers very well,
though with much of the Scotch accent. He preached on '_Love your
Enemies_[406].' It was remarkable that, when talking of the connections
amongst men, he said, that some connected themselves with men of
distinguished talents, and since they could not equal them, tried to
deck themselves with their merit, by being their companions. The
sentence was to this purpose. It had an odd coincidence with what might
be said of my connecting myself with Dr. Johnson[407].
After church we walked down to the Quay. We then went to Macbeth's
castle[408]. I had a romantick satisfaction in seeing Dr. Johnson
actually in it. It perfectly corresponds with Shakspear's description,
which Sir Joshua Reynolds has so happily illustrated, in one of his
notes on our immortal poet[409]:
'This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle sense,' &c.[410]
Just as we came out of it, a raven perched on one of the chimney-tops,
and croaked. Then I repeated
'----The raven himself is hoarse,
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements[411].'
We dined at Mr. Keith's. Mrs. Keith was rather too attentive to Dr.
Johnson, asking him many questions about his drinking only water. He
repressed that observation, by saying to me, 'You may remember that Lady
Errol took no notice of this.'
Dr. Johnson has the happy art (for which I have heard my father praise
the old Earl of Aberdeen) of instructing himself, by making every man he
meets tell him something of what he knows best. He led Keith to talk to
him of the Excise in Scotland, and, in the course of conversation,
mentioned that his friend Mr. Thrale, the great brewer, paid twenty
thousand pounds a year to the revenue; and that he had four casks, each
of which holds sixteen hundred barrels,--above a thousand hogsheads.
After this there was little conversation that deserves to be remembered.
I shall therefore here again glean what I have omitted on former days.
Dr. Gerrard, at Aberdeen, told us, that when he was in Wales, he was
shewn a valley inhabited by Danes, who still retain their own language,
and are quite a distinct people. Dr. Johnson thought it could not be
true, or all the kingdom must have heard of it. He said to me, as we
travelled, 'these people, Sir, that Gerrard talks of, may have somewhat
of a _peregrinity_ in their dialect, which relation has augmented to a
different language.' I asked him if _peregrinity_ was an English word:
he laughed, and said, 'No.' I told him this was the second time that I
had heard him coin a word[412]. When Foote broke his leg, I observed
that it would make him fitter for taking off George Faulkner as Peter
Paragraph[413], poor George having a wooden leg. Dr. Johnson at that
time said, 'George will rejoice at the _depeditation_ of Foote;' and
when I challenged that word, laughed, and owned he had made it, and
added that he had not made above three or four in his _Dictionary_[414].
Having conducted Dr. Johnson to our inn, I begged permission to leave
him for a little, that I might run about and pay some short visits to
several good people of Inverness. He said to me 'You have all the
old-fashioned principles, good and bad' I acknowledge I have. That of
attention to relations in the remotest degree, or to worthy persons, in
every state whom I have once known, I inherit from my father. It gave me
much satisfaction to hear every body at Inverness speak of him with
uncommon regard. Mr. Keith and Mr. Grant, whom we had seen at Mr.
M'Aulay's, supped with us at the inn. We had roasted kid, which Dr.
Johnson had never tasted before. He relished it much.