Last night much care was taken of Dr Johnson, who was still distressed
by his cold. He had hitherto most strangely slept without a night-cap.
Miss M'Leod made him a large flannel one, and he was prevailed with to
drink a little brandy when he was going to bed. He has great virtue,
in not drinking wine or any fermented liquor, because, as he
acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation. Lady M'Leod
would hardly believe him, and said, 'I am sure, sir, you would not
carry it too far.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, madam, it carried me. I took the
opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. It was then prescribed
to me not to drink wine; and having broken off the habit, I have never
returned to it.'
In the argument on Tuesday night, about natural goodness, Dr Johnson
denied that any child was better than another, but by difference of
instruction; though, in consequence of greater attention being paid to
instruction by one child than another, and of a variety of
imperceptible causes, such as instruction being counteracted by
servants, a notion was conceived, that of two children, equally well
educated, one was naturally much worse than another. He owned, this
morning, that one might have a greater aptitude to learn than another,
and that we inherit dispositions from our parents. 'I inherited,' said
he, 'a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my
life, at least not sober.' Lady M'Leod wondered he should tell this.
'Madam,' said I, 'he knows that with that madness he is superior to
other men.'
I have often been astonished with what exactness and perspicuity he
will explain the process of any art. He this morning explained to us
all the operation of coining, and, at night, all the operation of
brewing, so very clearly, that Mr M'Queen said, when he heard the
first, he thought he had been bred in the Mint; when he heard the
second, that he had been bred a brewer.
I was elated by the thought of having been able to entice such a man
to this remote part of the world. A ludicrous, yet just image
presented itself to my mind, which I expressed to the company. I
compared myself to a dog who has got hold of a large piece of meat,
and runs away with it to a corner, where he may devour it in peace,
without any fear of others taking it from him. 'In London, Reynolds,
Beauclerk, and all of them, are contending who shall enjoy Dr
Johnson's conversation. We are feasting upon it, undisturbed, at
Dunvegan.'
It was still a storm of wind and rain. Dr Johnson however walked out
with M'Leod, and saw Rorie More's cascade in full perfection. Colonel
M'Leod, instead of being all life and gaiety, as I have seen him, was
at present grave, and somewhat depressed by his anxious concern about
M'Leod's affairs, and by finding some gentlemen of the clan by no
means disposed to act a generous or affectionate part to their chief
in his distress, but bargaining with him as with a stranger. However,
he was agreeable and polite, and Dr Johnson said, he was a very
pleasing man. My fellow-traveller and I talked of going to Sweden;
and, while we were settling our plan, I expressed a pleasure in the
prospect of seeing the king. JOHNSON. 'I doubt, sir, if he would speak
to us.' Colonel M'Leod said, 'I am sure Mr Boswell would speak to
HIM.' But, seeing me a little disconcerted by his remark, he politely
added, 'and with great propriety'. Here let me offer a short defence
of that propensity in my disposition, to which this gentleman alluded.
It has procured me much happiness. I hope it does not deserve so hard
a name as either forwardness or impudence. If I know myself, it is
nothing more than an eagerness to share the society of men
distinguished either by their rank or their talents, and a diligence
to attain what I desire. If a man is praised for seeking knowledge,
though mountains and seas are in his way, may he not be pardoned,
whose ardour, in the pursuit of the same object, leads him to
encounter difficulties as great, though of a different kind?
After the ladies were gone from table, we talked of the highlanders
not having sheets; and this led us to consider the advantage of
wearing linen. JOHNSON. 'All animal substances are less cleanly than
vegetables. Wool, of which flannel is made, is an animal substance;
flannel therefore is not so cleanly as linen. I remember I used to
think tar dirty; but when I knew it to be only a preparation of the
juice of the pine, I thought so no longer. It is not disagreeable to
have the gum that oozes from a plumb-tree upon your fingers, because
it is vegetable, but if you have any candle-grease, any tallow upon
your fingers, you are uneasy till you rub it off. I have often
thought, that, if I kept a seraglio, the ladies should all wear linen
gowns, or cotton--I mean stuffs made of vegetable substances. I would
have no silk; you cannot tell when it is clean: it will be very nasty
before it is perceived to be so. Linen detects its own dirtiness.'
To hear the grave Dr Samuel Johnson, 'that majestick teacher of moral
and religious wisdom', while sitting solemn in an arm-chair in the
Isle of Sky, talk, ex cathedra, of his keeping a seraglio, and
acknowledge that the supposition had OFTEN been in his thoughts,
struck me so forcibly with ludicrous contrast, that I could not but
laugh immoderately. He was too proud to submit, even for a moment, to
be the object of ridicule, and instantly retaliated with such keen
sarcastick wit, and such a variety of degrading images, of every one
of which I was the object, that, though I can bear such attacks as
well as most men, I yet found myself so much the sport of all the
company, that I would gladly expunge from my mind every trace of this
severe retort.
Talking of our friend Langton's house in Lincolnshire, he said, 'the
old house of the family was burnt. A temporary building was erected in
its room; and to this day they have been always adding as the family
increased. It is like a shirt made for a man when he was a child, and
enlarged always as he grows older.'
We talked to-night of Luther's allowing the Landgrave of Hesse two
wives, and that it was with the consent of the wife to whom he was
first married. JOHNSON. 'There was no harm in this, so far as she was
only concerned, because volenti non fit injuria. But it was an offence
against the general order of society, and against the law of the
Gospel, by which one man and one woman are to be united. No man can
have two wives, but by preventing somebody else from having one.'