After dinner yesterday, we had a conversation upon cunning. M'Leod
said that he was not afraid of cunning people; but would let them play
their tricks about him like monkeys. 'But,' said I, 'they scratch';
and Mr M'Queen added, 'they'll invent new tricks, as soon as you find
out what they do.' JOHNSON. 'Cunning has effect from the credulity of
others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It
requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.' This led us to
consider whether it did not require great abilities to be very wicked.
JOHNSON. 'It requires great abilities to have the POWER of being very
wicked; but not to BE very wicked. A man who has the power, which
great abilities procure him, may use it well or ill; and it requires
more abilities to use it well, than to use it ill. Wickedness is
always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to every thing.
It is much easier to steal a hundred pounds, than to get it by labour,
or any other way. Consider only what act of wickedness requires great
abilities to commit it, when once the person who is to do it has the
power; for THERE is the distinction. It requires great abilities to
conquer an army, but none to massacre it after it is conquered.'
The weather this day was rather better than any that we had since we
came to Dunvegan. Mr M'Queen had often mentioned a curious piece of
antiquity near this which he called a temple of the goddess Anaitis.
Having often talked of going to see it, he and I set out after
breakfast, attended by his servant, a fellow quite like a savage. I
must observe here, that in Sky there seems to be much idleness; for
men and boys follow you, as colts follow passengers upon a road. The
usual figure of a Sky boy, is a lown with bare legs and feet, a dirty
kilt, ragged coat and waistcoat, a bare head, and a stick in his hand,
which, I suppose, is partly to help the lazy rogue to walk, partly to
serve as a kind of a defensive weapon. We walked what is called two
miles, but is probably four, from the castle, till we came to the
sacred place. The country around is a black dreary moor on all sides,
except to the sea-coast, towards which there is a view through a
valley, and the farm of Bay shews some good land. The place itself is
green ground, being well drained, by means of a deep glen on each
side, in both of which there runs a rivulet with a good quantity of
water, forming several cascades, which make a considerable appearance
and sound. The first thing we came to was an earthen mound, or dyke,
extending from the one precipice to the other. A little farther on,
was a strong stone-wall, not high, but very thick, extending in the
same manner. On the outside of it were the ruins of two houses, one on
each side of the entry or gate to it. The wall is built all along of
uncemented stones, but of so large a size as to make a very firm and
durable rampart. It has been built all about the consecrated ground,
except where the precipice is deep enough to form an enclosure of
itself. The sacred spot contains more than two acres. There are within
it the ruins of many houses, none of them large, a cairn, and many
graves marked by clusters of stones. Mr M'Queen insisted that the ruin
of a small building, standing east and west, was actually the temple
of the goddess Anaitis, where her statue was kept, and from whence
processions were made to wash it in one of the brooks. There is, it
must be owned, a hollow road visible for a good way from the entrance;
but Mr M'Queen, with the keen eye of an antiquary, traced it much
farther than I could perceive it. There is not above a foot and a half
in height of the walls now remaining; and the whole extent of the
building was never, I imagine, greater than an ordinary Highland
house. Mr M'Queen has collected a great deal of learning on the
subject of the temple of Anaitis; and I had endeavoured, in my
journal, to state such particulars as might give some idea of it, and
of the surrounding scenery; but from the great difficulty of
describing visible objects, I found my account so unsatisfactory, that
my readers would probably have exclaimed
And write about it, Goddess, and about it; and therefore I have
omitted it. When we got home, and were again at table with Dr Johnson,
we first talked of portraits. He agreed in thinking them valuable in
families. I wished to know which he preferred, fine portraits, or
those of which the merit was resemblance. JOHNSON. 'Sir, their chief
excellence is being like.' BOSWELL. 'Are you of that opinion as to the
portraits of ancestors, whom one has never seen?' JOHNSON. 'It then
becomes of more consequence that they should be like; and I would have
them in the dress of the times, which makes a piece of history. One
should like to see how Rorie More looked. Truth, sir, is of the
greatest value in these things.' Mr M'Queen observed, that if you
think it of no consequence whether portraits are like, if they are but
well painted, you may be indifferent whether a piece of history is
true or not, if well told.
Dr Johnson said at breakfast to day, 'that it was but of late that
historians bestowed pains and attention in consulting records, to
attain to accuracy. Bacon, in writing his History of Henry VII, does
not seem to have consulted any, but to have just taken what he found
in other histories, and blended it with what he learnt by tradition.'
He agreed with me that there should be a chronicle kept in every
considerable family, to preserve the characters and transactions of
successive generations.
After dinner I started the subject of the temple of Anaitis. Mr
M'Queen had laid stress on the name given to the place by the country
people, Ainnit; and added, 'I knew not what to make of this piece of
antiquity, till I met with the Anaitidis delubrum in Lydia, mentioned
by Pausanias and the elder Pliny.' Dr Johnson, with his usual
acuteness, examined Mr M'Queen as to the meaning of the word Ainnit,
in Erse; and it proved to be a WATER-PLACE, or a place near water,
'which,' said Mr M'Queen, 'agrees with all the descriptions of the
temples of that goddess, which were situated near rivers, that there
might be water to wash the statue'. JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir, the argument
from the name is gone. The name is exhausted by what we see. We have
no occasion to go to a distance for what we can pick up under our
feet. Had it been an accidental name, the similarity between it and
Anaitis might have had something in it; but it turns out to be a mere
physiological name.' Macleod said, Mr M'Queen's knowledge of etymology
had destroyed his conjecture. JOHNSON. 'You have one possibility for
you, and all possibilities against you. It is possible it may be the
temple of Anaitis. But it is also possible that it may be a
fortification; or it may be a place of Christian worship, as the first
Christians often chose remote and wild places, to make an impression
on the mind; or, if it was a heathen temple, it may have been built
near a river, for the purpose of lustration; and there is such a
multitude of divinities, to whom it may have been dedicated, that the
chance of its being a temple of Anaitis is hardly any thing. It is
like throwing a grain of sand upon the sea-shore today, and thinking
you may find it tomorrow. No, sir, this temple, like many an ill-built
edifice, tumbles down before it is roofed in.' In his triumph over the
reverend antiquarian, he indulged himself in a conceit; for, some
vestige of the ALTAR of the goddess being much insisted on in support
of the hypothesis, he said, 'Mr M'Queen is fighting pro aris et
focis.'
It was wonderful how well time passed in a remote castle, and in
dreary weather. After supper, we talked of Pennant. It was objected
that he was superficial. Dr Johnson defended him warmly. He said,
'Pennant has greater variety of inquiry than almost any man, and has
told us more than perhaps one in ten thousand could have done, in the
time that he took. He has not said what he was to tell; so you cannot
find fault with him, for what he has not told. If a man comes to look
for fishes, you cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls.'
'But,' said Colonel M'Leod, 'he mentions the unreasonable rise of
rents in the Highlands, and says, "the gentlemen are for emptying the
bag, without filling it"; for that is the phrase he uses. Why does he
not tell how to fill it?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no end of negative
criticism. He tells what he observes, and as much as he chooses. If he
tells what is not true, you may find fault with him; but, though he
tells that the land is not well cultivated, he is not obliged to tell
how it may be well cultivated. If I tell that many of the highlanders
go bare-footed, I am not obliged to tell how they may get shoes.
Pennant tells a fact. He need go no farther, except he pleases. He
exhausts nothing; and no subject whatever has yet been exhausted. But
Pennant has surely told a great deal. Here is a man six feet high, and
you are angry because he is not seven.' Notwithstanding this eloquent
Oratio pro Pennantio, which they who have read this gentleman's TOURS,
and recollect the Savage and the Shopkeeper at Monboddo will probably
impute to the spirit of contradiction. I still think that he had
better have given more attention to fewer things, than have thrown
together such a number of imperfect accounts.