There are, I fancy, no singing birds in the Highlands.' Piozzi Letters, i. 135. It is odd that he should have looked for singing birds on the first of September.
[444] Act iii. sc. 4.
[445] It is amusing to observe the different images which this being presented to Dr. Johnson and me. The Doctor, in his Journey, compares him to a Cyclops. BOSWELL. 'Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.' Works, ix. 44. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed where one of us was to lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be got'. Piozzi Letters, i, 136. Macaulay (Essays, ed. 1843, i. 404) says: 'It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the Journey to the Hebrides is the translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions.' Macaulay thereupon quotes these two passages. See ante, under Aug. 29, 1783.
[446] 'We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with my supper.'Piozzi Letters, i, 136. Goldsmith, who in his student days had been in Scotland, thus writes of a Scotch inn:--'Vile entertainment is served up, complained of, and sent down; up comes worse, and that also is changed, and every change makes our wretched cheer more unsavoury.' Present State of Polite Learning, ch. 12.
[447] General Wolfe, in his letter from Head-quarters on Sept. 2, 1759, eleven days before his death wrote:--'In this situation there is such a choice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss how to determine.' Ann. Reg. 1759, p. 246.
[448] See ante, p. 89.
[449] See ante, ii. 169, note 2.
[450] Boswell, in a note that he added to the second edition (see post, end of the Journal), says that he has omitted 'a few observations the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum,' In the first edition (p. 165) the next three paragraphs were as follows:--'Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, and a festive entertainment, we had a small company, and cannot boast of our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my Journal, but I shall not trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend Sir Thomas (Wentworth) Blacket, Lady Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon being asked by him if the punch-bowl then upon the table was not a very handsome one, replied, "Yes--if it were full." 'Sir Alexander Macdonald having been an Eton scholar, Dr. Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was much diminished when he beheld him in the isle of Sky, where we heard heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. Dr. Johnson said, "It grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear to such disadvantage. This gentleman has talents, nay some learning; but he is totally unfit for this situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen. A strong-minded man, like his brother Sir James, may be improved by an English education; but in general they will be tamed into insignificance." 'I meditated an escape from this house the very next day; but Dr. Johnson resolved that we should weather it out till Monday.' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast. A boat was procured, and we launched into one of the straits of the Atlantick Ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where ---- ---- resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified... Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.' Piozzi Letters, i. 137. A little later he wrote:--'I have done thinking of ---- whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony, and given occasion to so many stories, that ---- has some thoughts of collecting them, and making a novel of his life.' Ib. p. 198. The last of Rowlandson's Caricatures of Boswell's Journal is entitled Revising for the Second Edition. Macdonald is represented as seizing Boswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to the Journal that lies open at pages 168, 169. On the ground lie pages 165, 167, torn out. Boswell, in an agony of fear, is begging for mercy.
[451]
'Here, in Badenoch, here in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan, Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him.'
Clough's Bothie, p. 125
[452] See his Latin verses addressed to Dr.