[Sidenote: INCH KEITH.]
On the morning of Wednesday, August 18th, the travellers, accompanied
by Mr. Nairne, an advocate, set out on their northern tour. They were
attended by Boswell’s servant, Joseph Ritter, a Bohemian, “a fine
stately fellow above six feet high, who had been over a great part of
Europe, and spoke many languages. He was,” adds Boswell, “the best
servant I ever saw. Dr. Johnson gave him this character, ‘Sir, he is a
civil man, and a wise man.’” At Leith they took boat for Kinghorn on
the other side of the Firth of Forth. In the passage Johnson observed
the Island of Inch Keith, which, to his surprise, his companions had
never visited, “though lying within their view, it had all their
lives solicited their notice.” He flattered his pride as “a true-born
Englishman” by reflecting, had it been as near London as it was to
Edinburgh, “with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have
been purchased.” “I’d have this island,” he said. “I’d build a house,
make a good landing-place, have a garden and vines, and all sorts of
trees. A rich man of a hospitable turn here would have many visitors
from Edinburgh.” By his wish they landed, putting in at a little bay on
the north-west, the same “wild, stony little bay,” no doubt, into which
Thomas Carlyle and Edward Irving ran their boat one summer evening
more than forty years later. “We found the island,” writes Johnson, “a
rock somewhat troublesome to climb, about a mile long and half a mile
broad; in the middle were the ruins of an old fort, which had on one of
the stones, ‘Maria Re. 1564.’ It had been only a blockhouse one storey
high. The rock had some grass and many thistles, both cows and sheep
were grazing. There was a spring of water. We pleased ourselves with
being in a country all our own.” The ruins have long since disappeared;
with the stones a light-house was built. How our travellers were
affected by the beautiful scenery that was all around, if indeed they
were affected, we are not told. For natural beauties Boswell hoped to
be able some day “to force a taste.” In the description of visible
objects he honestly owned he found a great difficulty. Johnson’s
descriptions of scenery are almost all of the artificial school. Both
men were far too wise to affect raptures which they did not feel.
Happily the view that the chance wanderer sometimes sees in that lonely
island has been sketched for us by the hands of a master. Carlyle
thus describes what he saw: “The scene in our little bay, as we were
about proceeding to launch our boat, seemed to me the beautifullest
I had ever beheld. Sun about setting just in face of us, behind Ben
Lomond far away. Edinburgh with its towers; the great silver mirror
of the Frith girt by such a framework of mountains; cities, rocks,
and fields and wavy landscapes on all hands of us; and reaching right
under foot, as I remember, came a broad pillar as of gold from the just
sinking sun; burning axle, as it were, going down to the centre of the
world.”[438]
The weather was fine, so that our travellers had a pleasant crossing
over “that great gulf” which Hume “regarded with horror and a kind
of hydrophobia that kept him,” he said, from visiting Adam Smith at
Kirkaldy.[439] In _Humphry Clinker_ Matthew Bramble had had so rough
a passage, that when he was told that he had been saved “by the
particular care of Providence,” he replied, “Yes, but I am much of the
honest Highlander’s mind, after he had made such a passage as this. His
friend told him he was much indebted to Providence. ‘Certainly,’ said
Donald, ‘but by my saul, mon, I’se ne’er trouble Providence again so
long as the Brig of Stirling stands.’”[440]