I walked to the parish church of Slate, which is a very poor one.
There are no church bells in the island. I was told there were once
some; what has become of them, I could not learn. The minister not
being at home, there was no service. I went into the church and saw
the monument of Sir James Macdonald, which was elegantly executed at
Rome, and has the following inscription, written by his friend, George
Lord Lyttelton:
To the memory
Of SIR JAMES MACDONALD, BART.
Who in the flower of youth,
Had attained to so eminent a degree of knowledge
in Mathematics, Philosophy, Languages,
And in every other branch of useful and polite learning.
As few have acquired in a long life
Wholly devoted to study:
Yet to this erudition he joined
What can rarely be found with it.
Great talents for business,
Great propriety of behaviour,
Great politeness of manners!
His eloquence was sweet, correct, and flowing;
His memory vast and exact;
His judgement strong and acute;
All which endowments, united
With the most amiable temper
And every private virtue,
Procured him, not only in his own country,
But also from foreign nations,
The highest marks of esteem.
In the year of our Lord
1766,
The 25th of his life,
After a long and extremely painful illness,
Which he supported with admirable patience and fortitude,
He died at Rome,
Where, notwithstanding the difference of religion.
Such extraordinary honours were paid to his memory,
As had never graced that of any other British subject,
Since the death of Sir Philip Sydney.
The fame he left behind him is the best consolation
To his afflicted family,
And to his countrymen in this isle.
For whose benefit he had planned
Many useful improvements,
Which his fruitful genius suggested.
And his active spirit promoted.
Under the sober direction
Of a clear and enlightened understanding.
Reader, bewail our loss,
And that of all Britain.
In testimony of her love,
And as the best return she can make
To her departed son.
For the constant tenderness and affection
Which, even to his last moments,
He shewed for her.
His much afflicted mother.
The LADY MARGARET MACDONALD,
Daughter to the EARL of EGLINTOUNE,
Erected this Monument,
A.D. 1768.
[Footnote: This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of
knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the
most minute particulars concerning him must be interesting to many. I
shall therefore insert his two last letters to his mother. Lady
Margaret Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate
to me.
Rome, July 9th, 1766.
My Dear Mother,
Yesterday's post brought me your answer to the first letter in which I
acquainted you of my illness. Your tenderness and concern upon that
account are the same I have always experienced, and to which I have
often owed my life. Indeed it never was in so great danger as it has
been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me
to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought to rejoice, on your
account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle. I have been
now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to give you the same
good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last: but I must own that
for three days past. I have been in a very weak and miserable state,
which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician. My stomach
has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the
palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomach will soon
recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time. So I am
willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of
spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of
such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed--I only recover slower
than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of it
is a dose of physick, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I am
not able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, and
remain always
Your most sincerely affectionate son,
J. Macdonald.
He grew gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as
follows from Frescati:
My Dear Mother,
Though I did not mean to deceive you in my last letter from Rome, yet
certainly you would have very little reason to conclude of the very
great and constant danger I have gone through ever since that time. My
life, which is still almost entirely desperate, did not at that time
appear to me so, otherwise I should have represented, in its true
colours, a fact which acquires very little horror by that means, and
comes with redoubled force by deception. There is no circumstance of
danger and pain of which I have not had the experience, for a
continued series of above a fortnight; during which time I have
settled my affairs, after my death, with as much distinctness as the
hurry and the nature of the thing could admit of. In case of the
worst, the Abbe Grant will be my executor in this part of the world,
and Mr Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has been to make you and
my younger brother as independent of the eldest as possible.]
Dr Johnson said, the inscription should have been in Latin, as every
thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.
This being a beautiful day, my spirits were cheered by the mere effect
of climate. I had felt a return of spleen during my stay at Armidale,
and had it not been that I had Dr Johnson to contemplate, I should
have sunk into dejection; but his firmness supported me. I looked at
him, as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock, or
any fixed object. I wondered at his tranquillity. He said, 'Sir, when
a man retires into an island, he is to turn his thoughts intirely to
another world. He has done with this.' BOSWELL. 'It appears to me,
sir, to be very difficult to unite a due attention to this world, and
that which is to come; for, if we engage eagerly in the affairs of
life, we are apt to be totally forgetful of a future state; and, on
the other hand, a steady contemplation of the awful concerns of
eternity renders all objects here so insignificant, as to make us
indifferent and negligent about them.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, Dr Cheyne has
laid down a rule to himself on this subject, which should be imprinted
on every mind: "To neglect nothing to secure my eternal peace, more
than if I had been certified I should die within the day: nor to mind
any thing that my secular obligations and duties demanded of me, less
than if I had been ensured to live fifty years more."
I must here observe, that though Dr Johnson appeared now to be
philosophically calm, yet his genius did not shine forth as in
companies, where I have listened to him with admiration. The vigour of
his mind was, however, sufficiently manifested, by his discovering no
symptoms of feeble relaxation in the dull, 'weary, flat and
unprofitable' state in which we now were placed.
I am inclined to think that it was on this day he composed the
following Ode upon the Isle of Sky, which a few days afterwards he
shewed me at Raysay: