It was dark when we came to Fores last night; so we did not see what
is called King Duncan's monument. I shall now mark some gleanings of
Dr Johnson's conversation. I spoke of Leonidas, and said there were
some good passages in it. JOHNSON. 'Why, you must SEEK for them.' He
said, Paul Whitehead's Manners was a poor performance. Speaking of
Derrick, he told me he had a kindness for him, and had often said,
that if his letters had been written by one of a more established
name, they would have been thought very pretty letters.
This morning I introduced the subject of the origin of evil. JOHNSON.
'Moral evil is occasioned by free will, which implies choice between
good and evil. With all the evil that there is, there is no man but
would rather be a free agent, than a mere machine without the evil;
and what is best for each individual, must be best for the whole. If a
man would rather be the machine, I cannot argue with him. He is a
different being from me.' BOSWELL. 'A man, as a machine, may have
agreeable sensations; for instance, he may have pleasure in musick.'
JOHNSON, 'No, sir, he can not have pleasure in musick; at least no
power of producing musick; for he who can produce musick may let it
alone: he who can play upon a fiddle may break it: such a man is not a
machine.' This reasoning satisfied me. It is certain, there cannot be
a free agent, unless there is the power of being evil as well as good.
We must take the inherent possibilities of things into consideration,
in our reasonings or conjectures concerning the works of God.
We came to Nairn to breakfast. Though a county town and royal burgh,
it is a miserable place. Over the room where we sat, a girl was
spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing, an Erse song: 'I'll
warrant you,' said Dr Johnson, 'one of the songs of Ossian.' He then
repeated these lines:
'"Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound.
All at her work the village maiden sings;
Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around
Revolves the sad vicissitude of things."'
I thought I had heard these lines before. JOHNSON. 'I fancy not, sir;
for they are in a detached poem, the name of which I do not remember,
written by one Giffard, a parson.'
I expected Mr Kenneth M'Aulay, the minister of Calder, who published
the history of St Kilda, a book which Dr Johnson liked, would have met
us here, as I had written to him from Aberdeen. But I received a
letter from him, telling me that he could not leave home, as he was to
administer the sacrament the following Sunday, and earnestly
requesting to see us at his manse. 'We'll go,' said Dr Johnson; which
we accordingly did. Mrs M'Aulay received us, and told us her husband
was in the church distributing tokens. [Footnote: In Scotland, there
is a great deal of preparation before administering the sacrament. The
minister of the parish examines the people as to their fitness, and to
those of whom he approves gives little pieces of tin, stamped with the
name of the parish, as TOKENS, which they must produce before
receiving it. This is a species of priestly power, and sometimes may
be abused. I remember a lawsuit brought by a person against his parish
minister, for refusing him admission to that sacred ordinance.] We
arrived between twelve and one o'clock, and it was near three before
he came to us.
Dr Johnson thanked him for his book, and said 'it was a very pretty
piece of topography'. M'Aulay did not seem much to mind the
compliment. From his conversation, Dr Johnson was persuaded that he
had not written the book which goes under his name. I myself always
suspected so; and I have been told it was written by the learned Dr
John M'Pherson of Sky, from the materials collected by M'Aulay. Dr
Johnson said privately to me, 'There is a combination in it of which
M'Aulay is not capable.' However, he was exceedingly hospitable; and,
as he obligingly promised us a route for our tour through the Western
Isles, we agreed to stay with him all night.
After dinner, we walked to the old castle of Calder (pronounced
Cawder), the Thane of Cawdor's seat. I was sorry that my friend, this
'prosperous gentleman', was not there. The old tower must be of great
antiquity. There is a draw-bridge,--what has been a moat--and an
ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden
pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the
walls have been built round it. The thickness of the walls, the small
slaunting windows, and a great iron door at the entrance on the second
story as you ascend the stairs, all indicate the rude times in which
this castle was erected. There were here some large venerable trees.
I was afraid of a quarrel between Dr Johnson and Mr M'Aulay, who
talked slightingly of the lower English clergy. The Doctor gave him a
frowning look, and said, 'This is a day of novelties: I have seen old
trees in Scotland, and I have heard the English clergy treated with
disrespect.'
I dreaded that a whole evening at Caldermanse would be heavy; however,
Mr Grant, an intelligent and well-bred minister in the neighbourhood,
was there, and assisted us by his conversation. Dr Johnson, talking of
hereditary occupations in the Highlands, said, 'There is no harm in
such a custom as this; but it is wrong to enforce it, and oblige a man
to be a taylor or a smith, because his father has been one.' This
custom, however, is not peculiar to our Highlands; it is well known
that in India a similar practice prevails.
Mr M'Aulay began a rhapsody against creeds and confessions. Dr Johnson
shewed, that 'what he called "imposition", was only a voluntary
declaration of agreement in certain articles of faith, which a church
has a right to require, just as any other society can insist on
certain rules being observed by its members. Nobody is compelled to be
of the church, as nobody is compelled to enter into a society.' This
was a very clear and just view of the subject: but, M'Aulay could not
be driven out of his track. Dr Johnson said, 'Sir, you are a BIGOT TO
LAXNESS.'
Mr M'Aulay and I laid the map of Scotland before us; and he pointed
out a rout for us from Inverness, by Fort Augustus, to Glenelg, Sky,
Mull, Icolmkill, Lorn, and Inveraray, which I wrote down. As my father
was to begin the northern circuit about the 18th of September, it was
necessary for us to make our tour with great expedition, so as to get
to Auchinleck before he set out, or to protract it, so as not to be
there till his return, which would be about the 10th of October. By
M'Aulay's calculation, we were not to land in Lorn till the 20th of
September. I thought that the interruptions by bad days, or by
occasional excursions, might make it ten days later; and I thought
too, that we might perhaps go to Benbecula, and visit Clanranald,
which would take a week of itself.
Dr Johnson went up with Mr Grant to the library, which consisted of a
tolerable collection; but the Doctor thought it rather a lady's
library, with some Latin books in it by chance, than the library of a
clergyman. It had only two of the Latin fathers, and one of the Greek
fathers in Latin. I doubted whether Dr Johnson would be present at a
Presbyterian prayer. I told Mr M'Aulay so, and said that the Doctor
might sit in the library while we were at family worship. Mr M'Aulay
said, he would omit it, rather than give Dr Johnson offence: but I
would by no means agree that an excess of politeness, even to so great
a man, should prevent what I esteem as one of the best pious
regulations. I know nothing more beneficial, more comfortable, more
agreeable, than that the little societies of each family should
regularly assemble, and unite in praise and prayer to our heavenly
Father, from whom we daily receive so much good, and may hope for more
in a higher state of existence. I mentioned to Dr Johnson the
over-delicate scrupulosity of our host. He said, he had no objection
to hear the prayer. This was a pleasing surprise to me; for he refused
to go and hear Principal Robertson preach. 'I will hear him,' said he,
'if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a
sanction, by my presence, to a Presbyterian assembly.'
Mr Grant having prayed, Dr Johnson said, his prayer was a very good
one; but objected to his not having introduced the Lord's Prayer. He
told us, that an Italian of some note in London said once to him, 'We
have in our service a prayer called the Pater Noster, which is a very
fine composition. I wonder who is the author of it.' A singular
instance of ignorance in a man of some literature and general inquiry!