The weather was worse than yesterday. I felt as if imprisoned. Dr
Johnson said, it was irksome to be detained thus: yet he seemed to
have less uneasiness, or more patience, than I had. What made our
situation worse here was, that we had no rooms that we could command;
for the good people had no notion that a man could have any occasion
but for a mere sleeping-place; so, during the day, the bed-chambers
were common to all the house. Servants eat in Dr Johnson's; and mine
was a kind of general rendezvous of all under the roof, children and
dogs not excepted. As the gentlemen occupied the parlour, the ladies
had no place to sit in, during the day, but Dr Johnson's room. I had
always some quiet time for writing in it, before he was up; and, by
degrees, I accustomed the ladies to let me sit in it after breakfast,
at my Journal, without minding me.
Dr Johnson was this morning for going to see as many islands as we
could; not recollecting the uncertainty of the season, which might
detain us in one place for many weeks. He said to me, 'I have more the
spirit of adventure than you.' For my part, I was anxious to get to
Mull, from whence we might almost any day reach the main land.
Dr Johnson mentioned, that the few ancient Irish gentlemen yet
remaining have the highest pride of family; that Mr Sandford, a friend
of his, whose mother was Irish, told him, that O'Hara (who was true
Irish, both by father and mother) and he, and Mr Ponsonby, son to the
Earl of Besborough, the greatest man of the three, but of an English
family, went to see one of those ancient Irish, and that he
distinguished them thus: 'O'Hara, you are welcome! Mr Sandford, your
mother's son, is welcome! Mr Ponsonby, you may sit down.'
He talked both of threshing and thatching. He said, it was very
difficult to determine how to agree with a thresher. 'If you pay him
by the day's wages, he will thresh no more than he pleases; though, to
be sure, the negligence of a thresher is more easily detected than
that of most labourers, because he must always make a sound while he
works. If you pay him by the piece, by the quantity of grain which he
produces, he will thresh only while the grain comes freely, and,
though he leaves a good deal in the ear, it is not worth while to
thresh the straw over again; nor can you fix him to do it
sufficiently, because it is so difficult to prove how much less a man
threshes than he ought to do. Here then is a dilemma: but, for my
part, I would engage him by the day; I would rather trust his idleness
than his fraud.' He said, a roof thatched with Lincolnshire reeds
would last seventy years, as he was informed when in that county; and
that he told this in London to a great thatcher, who said, he believed
it might be true. Such are the pains that Dr Johnson takes to get the
best information on every subject.
He proceeded: 'It is difficult for a farmer in England to find day-
labourers, because the lowest manufacturers can always get more than a
day-labourer. It is of no consequence how high the wages of
manufacturers are; but it would be of very bad consequence to raise
the wages of those who procure the immediate necessaries of life, for
that would raise the price of provisions. Here then is a problem for
politicians. It is not reasonable that the most useful body of men
should be the worst paid; yet it does not appear how it can be ordered
otherwise. It were to be wished, that a mode for its being otherwise
were found out. In the mean time, it is better to give temporary
assistance by charitable contributions to poor labourers, at times
when provisions are high, than to raise their wages; because, if wages
are once raised, they will never get down again.'
Happily the weather cleared up between one and two o'clock, and we got
ready to depart; but our kind host and hostess would not let us go
without taking a 'snatch', as they called it; which was in truth a very
good dinner. While the punch went round, Dr Johnson kept a close
whispering conference with Mrs M'Kinnon, which, however, was loud enough
to let us hear that the subject of it was the particulars of Prince
Charles's escape. The company were entertained and pleased to observe
it. Upon that subject, there was something congenial between the soul of
Dr Samuel Johnson, and that of an isle of Sky farmer's wife. It is
curious to see people, how far soever removed from each other in the
general system of their lives, come close together on a particular point
which is common to each. We were merry with Corrichatachin, on Dr
Johnson's whispering with his wife. She, perceiving this, humorously
cried, 'I am in love with him. What is it to live and not to love?' Upon
her saying something, which I did not hear, or cannot recollect, he
seized her hand eagerly, and kissed it.
As we were going, the Scottish phrase of 'honest man!' which is an
expression of kindness and regard, was again and again applied by the
company to Dr Johnson. I was also treated with much civility; and I
must take some merit from my assiduous attention to him, and from my
contriving that he shall be easy wherever he goes, that he shall not
be asked twice to eat or drink any thing (which always disgusts him),
that he shall be provided with water at his meals, and many such
little things, which, if not attended to would fret him. I also may be
allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation: I do not mean
leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading
as one does in examining a witness--starting topics, and making him
pursue them. He appears to me like a great mill, into which a subject
is thrown to be ground. It requires, indeed, fertile minds to furnish
materials for this mill. I regret whenever I see it unemployed; but
sometimes I feel myself quite barren, and having nothing to throw in.
I know not if this mill be a good figure; though Pope makes his mind a
mill for turning verses.
We set out about four. Young Corrichatachin went with us. We had a
fine evening, and arrived in good time at Ostig, the residence of Mr
Martin M'Pherson, minister of Slate. It is a pretty good house, built
by his father, upon a farm near the church. We were received here with
much kindness by Mr and Mrs M'Pherson, and his sister, Miss M'Pherson,
who pleased Dr Johnson much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the
guittar. He afterwards sent her a present of his Rasselas. In his
bed-chamber was a press stored with books, Greek, Latin, French, and
English, most of which had belonged to the father of our host, the
learned Dr M'Pherson; who, though his Dissertations have been
mentioned in a former page as unsatisfactory, was a man of
distinguished talents. Dr Johnson looked at a Latin paraphrase of the
song of Moses, written by him, and published in the Scots Magazine for
1747, and said, 'It does him honour; he has a great deal of Latin, and
good Latin.' Dr M'Pherson published also in the same magazine, June
1739, an original Latin ode, which he wrote from the Isle of Barra,
where he was minister for some years. It is very poetical, and
exhibits a striking proof how much all things depend upon comparison:
for Barra, it seems, appeared to him so much worse than Sky, his
natale solum, that he languished for its 'blessed mountains', and
thought himself buried alive amongst barbarians where he was. My
readers will probably not be displeased to have a specimen of this
ode:
Hei mihi! quantos patior dolores,
Dum procul specto juga ter beata;
Dum ferae Barrae steriles arenas
Solus oberro.
Ingemo, indignor, crucior, quod inter
Barbaros Thulen lateam colentes;
Torpeo languens, morior sepultus,
Carcere coeco.
After wishing for wings to fly over to his dear country, which was in
his view, from what he calls 'Thule', as being the most western isle
of Scotland, except St Kilda; after describing the pleasures of
society, and the miseries of solitude, he at last, with becoming
propriety, has recourse to the only sure relief of thinking
men--Sursum corda, the hope of a better world--and disposes his mind
to resignation:
Interim fiat, tua, rex, voluntas:
Erigor sursum quoties subit spes
Certa migrandi Solymam supernam,
Numinis aulam.
He concludes in a noble strain of orthodox piety:
Vita tum demum vocitanda vita est.
Tum licet gratos socios habere,
Seraphim et sanctos Triadem verendam
Concelebrantes.