Mr Keith breakfasted with us. Dr Johnson expatiated rather too
strongly upon the benefits derived to Scotland from the Union, 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. [Footnote: It is remarkable that Dr Johnson read this
gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me.] 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'. 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.
After church, we walked down to the Quay. We then went to Macbeth's
castle. I had a romantick satisfaction in seeing Dr Johnson actually
in it. It perfectly corresponds with Shakspeare's description, which
Sir Joshua Reynolds has so happily illustrated, in one of his notes on
our immortal poet:
This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle sense, &c.
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 enterance of Duncan
Under my battlements.'
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 Gerard, 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 Gerard
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. When
Foote broke his leg, I observed that it would make him fitter for
taking off George Faulkner as Peter Paragragh, 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. [Footnote: When upon the subject of this
PEREGRINITY, he told me some particulars concerning the compilation of
his Dictionary, and concerning his throwing off Lord Chesterfield's
patronage, of which very erroneous accounts have been circulated.
These particulars, with others which he afterwards gave me--as also
his celebrated letter to lord Chesterfield, which he dictated to me--I
reserve for his Life.]
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.