After dinner yesterday, we had a conversation upon cunning. M'Leod said
that he was not afraid of cunning people; but would let them play their
tricks about him like monkeys. 'But, (said I,) they'll scratch;' and Mr.
M'Queen added, 'they'll invent new tricks, as soon as you find out what
they do.' JOHNSON. 'Cunning has effect from the credulity of others,
rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no
extraordinary talents to lie and deceive[608].' This led us to consider
whether it did not require great abilities to be very wicked. JOHNSON.
'It requires great abilities to have the _power_ of being very wicked;
but not to _be_ very wicked. A man who has the power, which great
abilities procure him, may use it well or ill; and it requires more
abilities to use it well, than to use it ill. Wickedness is always
easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to every thing. It is
much easier to steal a hundred pounds, than to get it by labour, or any
other way. Consider only what act of wickedness requires great abilities
to commit it, when once the person who is to do it has the power; for
_there_ is the distinction. It requires great abilities to conquer an
army, but none to massacre it after it is conquered.'
The weather this day was rather better than any that we had since we
came to Dunvegan. Mr. M'Queen had often mentioned a curious piece of
antiquity near this, which he called a temple of the Goddess ANAITIS.
Having often talked of going to see it, he and I set out after
breakfast, attended by his servant, a fellow quite like a savage. I must
observe here, that in Sky there seems to be much idleness; for men and
boys follow you, as colts follow passengers upon a road. The usual
figure of a Sky-boy, is a _lown_ with bare legs and feet, a dirty
_kilt_, ragged coat and waistcoat, a bare head, and a stick in his hand,
which, I suppose, is partly to help the lazy rogue to walk, partly to
serve as a kind of a defensive weapon. We walked what is called two
miles, but is probably four, from the castle, till we came to the sacred
place. The country around is a black dreary moor on all sides, except to
the sea-coast, towards which there is a view through a valley; and the
farm of _Bay_ shews some good land. The place itself is green ground,
being well drained by means of a deep glen on each side, in both of
which there runs a rivulet with a good quantity of water, forming
several cascades, which make a considerable appearance and sound. The
first thing we came to was an earthen mound, or dyke, extending from the
one precipice to the other. A little farther on was a strong stone-wall,
not high, but very thick, extending in the same manner. On the outside
of it were the ruins of two houses, one on each side of the entry or
gate to it. The wall is built all along of uncemented stones, but of so
large a size as to make a very firm and durable rampart. It has been
built all about the consecrated ground, except where the precipice is
steep enough to form an inclosure of itself. The sacred spot contains
more than two acres. There are within it the ruins of many houses, none
of them large,--a _cairn_,--and many graves marked by clusters of
stones. Mr. M'Queen insisted that the ruin of a small building, standing
east and west, was actually the temple of the Goddess ANAITIS, where her
statue was kept, and from whence processions were made to wash it in one
of the brooks. There is, it must be owned, a hollow road, visible for a
good way from the entrance; but Mr. M'Queen, with the keen eye of an
antiquary, traced it much farther than I could perceive it. There is not
above a foot and a half in height of the walls now remaining; and the
whole extent of the building was never, I imagine, greater than an
ordinary Highland house. Mr. M'Queen has collected a great deal of
learning on the subject of the temple of ANAITIS; and I had endeavoured,
in my _Journal_, to state such particulars as might give some idea of
it, and of the surrounding scenery; but from the great difficulty of
describing visible objects[609], I found my account so unsatisfactory,
that my readers would probably have exclaimed
'And write about it, _Goddess_, and about it[610];'
and therefore I have omitted it.
When we got home, and were again at table with Dr. Johnson, we first
talked of portraits. He agreed in thinking them valuable in families. I
wished to know which he preferred, fine portraits, or those of which the
merit was resemblance. JOHNSON. 'Sir, their chief excellence is being
like.' BOSWELL. 'Are you of that opinion as to the portraits of
ancestors, whom one has never seen?' JOHNSON. 'It then becomes of more
consequence that they should be like; and I would have them in the dress
of the times, which makes a piece of history. One should like to see how
_Rorie More_ looked. Truth, Sir, is of the greatest value in these
things[611].' Mr. M'Queen observed, that if you think it of no
consequence whether portraits are like, if they are but well painted,
you may be indifferent whether a piece of history is true or not, if
well told.
Dr. Johnson said at breakfast to-day, 'that it was but of late that
historians bestowed pains and attention in consulting records, to attain
to accuracy[1]. Bacon, in writing his history of Henry VII, does not
seem to have consulted any, but to have just taken what he found in
other histories, and blended it with what he learnt by tradition.' He
agreed with me that there should be a chronicle kept in every
considerable family, to preserve the characters and transactions of
successive generations.
After dinner I started the subject of the temple of ANAITIS. Mr. M'Queen
had laid stress on the name given to the place by the country
people,--_Ainnit_; and added, 'I knew not what to make of this piece of
antiquity, till I met with the _Anaitidis delubrum_ in Lydia, mentioned
by Pausanias and the elder Pliny.' Dr. Johnson, with his usual
acuteness, examined Mr. M'Queen as to the meaning of the word _Ainnit_,
in Erse; and it proved to be a _water-place_, or a place near water,
'which,' said Mr. M'Queen, 'agrees with all the descriptions of the
temples of that goddess, which were situated near rivers, that there
might be water to wash the statue.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, the argument
from the name is gone. The name is exhausted by what we see. We have no
occasion to go to a distance for what we can pick up under our feet. Had
it been an accidental name, the similarity between it and Anaitis might
have had something in it; but it turns out to be a mere physiological
name.' Macleod said, Mr. M'Queen's knowledge of etymology had destroyed
his conjecture. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; Mr. M'Queen is like the eagle
mentioned by Waller, who was shot with an arrow feather'd from his own
wing[612].' Mr. M'Queen would not, however, give up his conjecture.
JOHNSON. 'You have one possibility for you, and all possibilities
against you. It is possible it may be the temple of Anaitis. But it is
also possible that it may be a fortification; or it may be a place of
Christian worship, as the first Christians often chose remote and wild
places, to make an impression on the mind; or, if it was a heathen
temple, it may have been built near a river, for the purpose of
lustration; and there is such a multitude of divinities, to whom it may
have been dedicated, that the chance of its being a temple of _Anaitis_
is hardly any thing. It is like throwing a grain of sand upon the
sea-shore to-day, and thinking you may find it to-morrow. No, Sir, this
temple, like many an ill-built edifice, tumbles down before it is roofed
in.' In his triumph over the reverend antiquarian, he indulged himself
in a _conceit_; for, some vestige of the _altar_ of the goddess being
much insisted on in support of the hypothesis, he said, 'Mr. M'Queen is
fighting _pro_ aris _et focis'_.
It was wonderful how well time passed in a remote castle, and in dreary
weather. After supper, we talked of Pennant. It was objected that he was
superficial. Dr. Johnson defended him warmly[613]. He said, 'Pennant has
greater variety of enquiry than almost any man, and has told us more
than perhaps one in ten thousand could have done, in the time that he
took. He has not said what he was to tell; so you cannot find fault with
him, for what he has not told. If a man comes to look for fishes, you
cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls.' 'But,' said Colonel
M'Leod, 'he mentions the unreasonable rise of rents in the Highlands,
and says, "the gentlemen are for emptying the bag, without filling
it[614];" for that is the phrase he uses. Why does he not tell how to
fill it?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no end of negative criticism. He tells
what he observes, and as much as he chooses. If he tells what is not
true, you may find fault with him; but, though he tells that the land is
not well cultivated, he is not obliged to tell how it may be well
cultivated. If I tell that many of the Highlanders go bare-footed, I am
not obliged to tell how they may get shoes. Pennant tells a fact. He
need go no farther, except he pleases. He exhausts nothing; and no
subject whatever has yet been exhausted. But Pennant has surely told a
great deal. Here is a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is
not seven.' Notwithstanding this eloquent _Oratio pro Pennantio_, which
they who have read this gentleman's _Tours_, and recollect the _Savage_
and the _Shopkeeper_ at _Monboddo_[615], will probably impute to the
spirit of contradiction, I still think that he had better have given
more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number
of imperfect accounts.