Old Mr. Drummond, the bookseller[1047], came to breakfast. Dr. Johnson
and he had not met for ten years. There was respect on his side, and
kindness on Dr. Johnson's. Soon afterwards Lord Elibank came in, and was
much pleased at seeing Dr. Johnson in Scotland. His lordship said,
'hardly any thing seemed to him more improbable.' Dr. Johnson had a
very high opinion of him. Speaking of him to me, he characterized him
thus: 'Lord Elibank has read a great deal. It is true, I can find in
books all that he has read; but he has a great deal of what is in books,
proved by the test of real life.' Indeed, there have been few men whose
conversation discovered more knowledge enlivened by fancy. He published
several small pieces of distinguished merit; and has left some in
manuscript, in particular an account of the expedition against
Carthagena, in which he served as an officer in the army. His writings
deserve to be collected. He was the early patron of Dr. Robertson, the
historian, and Mr. Home, the tragick poet; who, when they were ministers
of country parishes, lived near his seat. He told me, 'I saw these lads
had talents, and they were much with me.' I hope they will pay a
grateful tribute to his memory[1048].
The morning was chiefly taken up by Dr. Johnson's giving him an account
of our Tour. The subject of difference in political principles was
introduced. JOHNSON. 'It is much increased by opposition. There was a
violent Whig, with whom I used to contend with great eagerness. After
his death I felt my Toryism much abated.' I suppose he meant Mr.
Walmsley of Lichfield, whose character he has drawn so well in his _Life
of Edmund Smith_[1049]. Mr. Nairne[1050] came in, and he and I
accompanied Dr. Johnson to Edinburgh Castle, which he owned was 'a great
place.' But I must mention, as a striking instance of that spirit of
contradiction to which he had a strong propensity, when Lord Elibank was
some days after talking of it with the natural elation of a Scotchman,
or of any man who is proud of a stately fortress in his own country, Dr.
Johnson affected to despise it, observing that 'it would make a good
_prison_ in ENGLAND.'
Lest it should be supposed that I have suppressed one of his sallies
against my country, it may not be improper here to correct a mistaken
account that has been circulated, as to his conversation this day. It
has been said, that being desired to attend to the noble prospect from
the Castle-hill, he replied, 'Sir, the noblest prospect that a Scotchman
ever sees, is the high road that leads him to London.' This lively
sarcasm was thrown out at a tavern[1051] in London, in my presence, many
years before.
We had with us to-day at dinner, at my house, the Lady Dowager Colvill,
and Lady Anne Erskine, sisters of the Earl of Kelly[1052]; the
Honourable Archibald Erskine, who has now succeeded to that title; Lord
Elibank; the Reverend Dr. Blair; Mr. Tytler, the acute vindicator of
Mary Queen of Scots[1053], and some other friends[1054].
_Fingal_ being talked of, Dr. Johnson, who used to boast that he had,
from the first, resisted both Ossian[1055] and the Giants of
Patagonia[1056], averred his positive disbelief of its authenticity.
Lord Elibank said, 'I am sure it is not M'Pherson's. Mr. Johnson, I keep
company a great deal with you; it is known I do. I may borrow from you
better things than I can say myself, and give them as my own; but, if I
should, every body will know whose they are.' The Doctor was not
softened by this compliment. He denied merit to _Fingal_, supposing it
to be the production of a man who has had the advantages that the
present age affords; and said, 'nothing is more easy than to write
enough in that style if once you begin[1057].'[1058]One gentleman in
company[1059] expressing his opinion 'that _Fingal_ was certainly
genuine, for that he had heard a great part of it repeated in the
original,' Dr. Johnson indignantly asked him whether he understood the
original; to which an answer being given in the negative, 'Why then,
(said Dr. Johnson,) we see to what _this_ testimony comes:--thus it is.'
I mentioned this as a remarkable proof how liable the mind of man is to
credulity, when not guarded by such strict examination as that which Dr.
Johnson habitually practised.[1060]The talents and integrity of the
gentleman who made the remark, are unquestionable; yet, had not Dr.
Johnson made him advert to the consideration, that he who does not
understand a language, cannot know that something which is recited to
him is in that language, he might have believed, and reported to this
hour, that he had 'heard a great part of _Fingal_ repeated in the
original.'
For the satisfaction of those on the north of the Tweed, who may think
Dr. Johnson's account of Caledonian credulity and inaccuracy too
strong,[1061] it is but fair to add, that he admitted the same kind of
ready belief might be found in his own country. 'He would undertake, (he
said) to write an epick poem on the story of _Robin Hood_,[1062] and
half England, to whom the names and places he should mention in it are
familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from their
earliest years.'
One of his objections to the authenticity of _Fingal_, during the
conversation at Ulinish,[1063] is omitted in my _Journal_, but I
perfectly recollect it. 'Why is not the original deposited in some
publick library, instead of exhibiting attestations of its
existence?[1064] Suppose there were a question in a court of justice,
whether a man be dead or alive: You aver he is alive, and you bring
fifty witnesses to swear it: I answer, "Why do you not produce the
man?"' This is an argument founded upon one of the first principles of
the _law of evidence_, which _Gilbert_[1065] would have held to be
irrefragable.
I do not think it incumbent on me to give any precise decided opinion
upon this question, as to which I believe more than some, and less than
others.[1066]
The subject appears to have now become very uninteresting to the
publick. That _Fingal_ is not from beginning to end a translation from
the Gallick, but that _some_ passages have been supplied by the editor
to connect the whole, I have heard admitted by very warm advocates for
its authenticity. If this be the case, why are not these distinctly
ascertained? Antiquaries, and admirers of the work, may complain, that
they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy gentleman, whose
wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their reputed children
was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to declare which of them it
was, she answered, '_That_ you shall never know;' and expired, leaving
him in irremediable doubt as to them all.
I beg leave now to say something upon _second sight_, of which I have
related two instances,[1067] as they impressed my mind at the time. I
own, I returned from the Hebrides with a considerable degree of faith in
the many stories of that kind which I heard with a too easy
acquiescence, without any close examination of the evidence: but, since
that time, my belief in those stories has been much weakened,[1068] by
reflecting on the careless inaccuracy of narrative in common matters,
from which we may certainly conclude that there may be the same in what
is more extraordinary. It is but just, however, to add, that the belief
in second sight is not peculiar to the Highlands and Isles.[1069]
Some years after our Tour, a cause[1070] was tried in the Court of
Session, where the principal fact to be ascertained was, whether a
ship-master, who used to frequent the Western Highlands and Isles, was
drowned in one particular year, or in the year after. A great number of
witnesses from those parts were examined on each side, and swore
directly contrary to each other, upon this simple question. One of them,
a very respectable Chieftain, who told me a story of second sight, which
I have not mentioned, but which I too implicitly believed, had in this
case, previous to this publick examination, not only said, but attested
under his hand, that he had seen the ship-master in the year subsequent
to that in which the court was finally satisfied he was drowned. When
interrogated with the strictness of judicial inquiry, and under the awe
of an oath, he recollected himself better, and retracted what he had
formerly asserted, apologising for his inaccuracy, by telling the
judges, 'A man will _say_ what he will not _swear_.' By many he was much
censured, and it was maintained that every gentleman would be as
attentive to truth without the sanction of an oath, as with it. Dr.
Johnson, though he himself was distinguished at all times by a
scrupulous adherence to truth, controverted this proposition; and as a
proof that this was not, though it ought to be, the case, urged the very
different decisions of elections under Mr. Grenville's Act,[1071] from
those formerly made. 'Gentlemen will not pronounce upon oath what they
would have said, and voted in the house, without that sanction.'
However difficult it may be for men who believe in preternatural
communications, in modern times, to satisfy those who are of a different
opinion, they may easily refute the doctrine of their opponents, who
impute a belief in _second sight_ to _superstition_. To entertain a
visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called
_superstition_: but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an
impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, _if proved_,
has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electricity.
After dinner, various topicks were discussed; but I recollect only one
particular. Dr. Johnson compared the different talents of Garrick and
Foote,[1072] as companions, and gave Garrick greatly the preference for
elegance, though he allowed Foote extraordinary powers of entertainment.
He said, 'Garrick is restrained by some principle; but Foote has the
advantage of an unlimited range. Garrick has some delicacy of feeling;
it is possible to put him out; you may get the better of him; but Foote
is the most incompressible fellow that I ever knew; when you have driven
him into a corner, and think you are sure of him, he runs through
between your legs, or jumps over your head, and makes his escape.'
Dr. Erskine[1073] and Mr. Robert Walker, two very respectable ministers
of Edinburgh, supped with us, as did the Reverend Dr. Webster.[1074] The
conversation turned on the Moravian missions, and on the Methodists. Dr.
Johnson observed in general, that missionaries were too sanguine in
their accounts of their success among savages, and that much of what
they tell is not to be believed. He owned that the Methodists had done
good; had spread religious impressions among the vulgar part of
mankind:[1075] but, he said, they had great bitterness against other
Christians, and that he never could get a Methodist to explain in what
he excelled others; that it always ended in the indispensible necessity
of hearing one of their preachers.[1076]