Old Mr Drummond, the bookseller, came to breakfast. Dr Johnson and he
had not met for ten years. There was respect on his side, and kindness
on Dr Johnson's. Soon afterwards Lord Elibank came in, and was much
pleased at seeing Dr Johnson in Scotland. His lordship said, 'hardly
any thing seemed to him more improbable'. Dr Johnson had a very high
opinion of him. Speaking of him to me, he characterized him thus:
'Lord Elibank has read a great deal. It is true, I can find in books
all that he has read; but he has a great deal of what is in books,
proved by the test of real life.' Indeed, there have been few men
whose conversation discovered more knowledge enlivened by fancy. He
published several small pieces of distinguished merit; and has left
some in manuscript, in particular an account of the expedition against
Carthagena, in which he served as an officer in the army. His writings
deserve to be collected. He was the early patron of Dr Robertson, the
historian, and Mr Home, the tragick poet; who, when they we were
ministers of country parishes, lived near his seat. He told me, 'I saw
these lads had talents, and they were much with me.' I hope they will
pay a grateful tribute to his memory.
The morning was chiefly taken up by Dr Johnson's giving him an account
of our tour. The subject of difference in political principles was
introduced. JOHNSON. 'It is much increased by opposition. There was a
violent Whig, with whom I used to contend with great eagerness. After
his death I felt my Toryism much abated.' I suppose he meant Mr
Walmsley of Lichfield, whose character he has drawn so well in his
life of Edmund Smith.
Mr Nairne came in, and he and I accompanied Dr Johnson to Edinburgh
castle, which he owned was 'a great place'. But I must mention, as a
striking instance of that spirit of contradiction to which he had a
strong propensity, when Lord Elibank was some days after talking of it
with the natural elation of a Scotchman, or of any man who is proud of
a stately fortress in his own country, Dr Johnson affected to despise
it, observing that, 'it would make a good PRISON in ENGLAND'.
Lest it should be supposed that I have suppressed one of his sallies
against my country, it may not be improper here to correct a mistaken
account that has been circulated, as to his conversation this day. It
has been said, that being desired to attend to the noble prospect from
the Castle Hill, he replied, 'Sir, the noblest prospect that a
Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to London.' This
lively sarcasm was thrown out at a tavern in London, in my presence,
many years before.
We had with us to day at dinner, at my house, the Lady Dowager
Colvill, and Lady Anne Erskine, sisters of the Earl of Kelly; the
Honourable Archibald Erskine, who has now succeeded to that title;
Lord Elibank; the Reverend Dr Blair; Mr Tytler, the acute vindicator
of Mary Queen of Scots, and some other friends.
Fingal being talked of, Dr Johnson, who used to boast that he had,
from the first, resisted both Ossian and the giants of Patagonia,
averred his positive disbelief of its authenticity. Lord Elibank said,
'I am sure it is not McPherson's. Mr Johnson, I keep company a great
deal with you; it is known I do. I may borrow from you better things
than I can say myself, and give them as my own; but, if I should,
every body will know whose they are.' The Doctor was not softened by
this compliment. He denied merit to Fingal, supposing it to be the
production of a man who has had the advantages that the present age
affords; and said, 'nothing is more easy than to write enough in that
style if once you begin'. [Footnote: I desire not to be understood as
agreeing ENTIRELY with the opinions of Dr Johnson, which I relate
without any remark. The many imitations, however, of Fingal, that have
been published, confirm this observation in a considerable degree.]
One gentleman in company expressing his opinion 'that Fingal was
certainly genuine, for that he had heard a great part of it repeated
in the original', Dr Johnson indignantly asked him, whether he
understood the original; to which an answer being given in the
negative, 'Why then,' said Dr Johnson, 'we see to what THIS testimony
comes: thus it is.'
I mentioned this as a remarkable proof how liable the mind of man is
to credulity, when not guarded by such strict examination as that
which Dr Johnson habitually practised. The talents and integrity of
the gentleman who made the remark, are unquestionable; yet, had not Dr
Johnson made him advert to the consideration, that he who does not
understand a language, cannot know that something which is recited to
him is in that language, he might have believed, and reported to this
hour, that he had 'heard a great part of Fingal repeated in the
original'.
For the satisfaction of those on the north of the Tweed, who may think
Dr Johnson's account of Caledonian credulity and inaccuracy too
strong, it is but fair to add, that he admitted the same kind of ready
belief might be found in his own country. 'He would undertake,' he
said, 'to write an epick poem on the story of Robin Hood, and half
England, to whom the names and places he should mention in it are
familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from their
earliest years.'
One of his objections to the authenticity of Fingal, during the
conversation at Ulinish, is omitted in my Journal, but I perfectly
recollect it. 'Why is not the original deposited in some publick
library, instead of exhibiting attestations of its existence? Suppose
there were a question in a court of justice, whether a man be dead or
alive. You aver he is alive, and you bring fifty witnesses to swear
it: I answer, "Why do you not produce the man "' This is an argument
founded on one of the first principles of the LAW OF EVIDENCE, which
Gilbert would have held to be irrefragable.
I do not think it incumbent on me to give any precise decided opinion
upon this question, as to which I believe more than some, and less
than others. The subject appears to have now become very uninteresting
to the publick. That Fingal is not from beginning to end a translation
from the Gallick, but that some passages have been supplied by the
editor to connect the whole, I have heard admitted by very warm
advocates for its authenticity. If this be the case, why are not these
distinctly ascertained? Antiquaries, and admirers of the work, may
complain, that they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy
gentleman whose wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their
reputed children was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to
declare which of them it was, she answered, 'THAT you shall never
know', and expired, leaving him in irremediable doubt as to them all.
I beg leave to say something upon second sight, of which I have
related two instances, as they impressed my mind at the time. I own, I
returned from the Hebrides with a considerable degree of faith in the
many stories of that kind which I heard with a too easy acquiescence,
without any clear examination of the evidence: but, since that time,
my belief in those stories has been much weakened, by reflecting on
the careless inaccuracy of narrative in common matters, from which we
may certainly conclude that these may be the same in what is more
extraordinary. It is but just, however, to add, that the belief in
second sight is not peculiar to the Highlands and Isles.
Some years after our tour, a cause was tried in the Court of Session
where the principal fact to be ascertained was, whether a ship-master,
who used to frequent the Western Highlands and Isles, was drowned in
one particular year, or in the year after. A great number of witnesses
from the parts were examined on each side, and swore directly contrary
to each other upon this simple question. One of them, a very
respectable chieftain, who told me a story of second sight, which I
have not mentioned, but which I too implicitly believed, had in this
case, previous to this publick examination, not only said, but
attested under his hand, that he had seen the ship-master in the year
subsequent to that in which the court was finally satisfied he was
drowned. When interrogated with the strictness of judicial inquiry,
and under the awe of an oath, he recollected himself better, and
retracted what he had formerly asserted, apologizing for his
inaccuracy, by telling the judge 'A man will SAY what he will not
SWEAR.' By many he was much censured and it was maintained that every
gentleman would be as attentive to truth without the sanction of an
oath, as with it. Dr Johnson, though he himself was distinguished at
all times by a scrupulous adherence to truth, controverted this
proposition; and, as a proof that this was not, though it ought to be,
the case, urged the very different decisions of elections under Mr
Greville's Act, from those formerly made. 'Gentlemen will not
pronounce upon oath, what they would have said, and voted in the House
without the sanction.'
However difficult it may be for men who believe in preternatural
communications, in modern times, to falsify those who are of a
different opinion, they may easily refute the doctrine of their
opponents, who impute a belief in second sight to superstition. To
entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event,
may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or
event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very
wonderful, IF PROVED, has no more connection with superstition, than
magnetism or electricity.
After dinner, various topicks were discussed; but I recollect only one
particular. Dr Johnson compared the different talents of Garrick and
Foote, as companions, and gave Garrick greatly the preference for
elegance, though he allowed Foote extraordinary powers of
entertainment. He said, 'Garrick is restrained by some principle; but
Foote has the advantage of an unlimited range. Garrick has some
delicacy of feeling; it is possible to put him out; you may get the
better of him; but Foote is the most incompressible fellow that I ever
knew: when you have driven him into a corner, and think you are sure
of him, he runs through between your legs, or jumps over your head,
and makes his escape.'
Dr Erskine and Mr Robert Walker, two very respectable ministers of
Edinburgh, supped with us, as did the Reverend Dr Webster. The
conversation turned on the Moravian missions, and on the Methodists.
Dr Johnson observed in general, that missionaries were too sanguine in
their accounts of their success among savages, and that much of what
they tell is not to be believed. He owned that the Methodists had done
good; had spread religious impressions among the vulgar part of
mankind: but, he said, they had great bitterness against other
Christians, and that he never could get a Methodist to explain in what
he excelled others; that it always ended in the indispensible
necessity of hearing one of their preachers.