144

Talk about the stage.

[August 28.

Garrick, and see the deficiency. Garrick's great distinction is his universality'. He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy fine bred gentleman'.' PENNINGTON. 'He should give over playing young parts.' JOHNSON. 'He does not take them now; but he does not leave off those which he has been used to play, because he does them better than any one else can do them. If you had generations of actors, if they swarmed like bees, the young ones might drive off the old. Mrs. Cibber3, I think, got more reputation than she deserved, as she had a great sameness: though her expression was undoubtedly very fine. Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw. Mrs. Prichard' was a very good one; but she had something affected in her manner: I imagine she had some player of the former age in her eye, which occasioned it.'

Colonel Pennington said, Garrick sometimes failed in emphasis; as for instance, in Hamlet,

'I will speak daggers to her; but use none'.' instead of

'I will speak daggers to her; but use none.'

We had a dinner of two complete courses, variety of wines, and the regimental band of musick playing in the square, before the windows, after it. I enjoyed this day much. We were quite easy and cheerful. Dr. Johnson

1 See ante, iii. 41, and under Sept. 30, 1783.

2 'Garrick used to tell, that Johnson said of an actor who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lichfield, “There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;" when, in fact, according to Garrick's account, "he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards." Ante, ii. 532.

3 Mrs. Cibber was the sister of Dr. Arne the musical composer, and the wife of Theophilus Cibber, Colley Cibber's son. She died in 1766, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Baker's Biog. Dram. i. 123.

• See ante, under Sept. 30, 1783.

5 See ante, i. 229, and ii. 399.

6

Johnson had set him to repeat the ninth commandment, and had with great glee put him right in the emphasis. Ante, i. 195.

7 Act iii. sc. 2.

August 28.] Boswell's warm imagination.

145

Dr.

said, 'I shall always remember this fort with gratitude.' I could not help being struck with some admiration, at finding upon this barren sandy point, such buildings, such a dinner, such company: it was like enchantment. Johnson, on the other hand, said to me more rationally, that it did not strike him as anything extraordinary; because he knew, here was a large sum of money expended in building a fort; here was a regiment. If there had been less than what we found, it would have surprised him.' He looked coolly and deliberately through all the gradations: my warm imagination jumped from the barren sands to the splendid dinner and brilliant company, to borrow the expression of an absurd poet,

'Without ands or ifs,

I leapt from off the sands upon the cliffs.'

The whole scene gave me a strong impression of the power and excellence of human art.

We left the fort between six and seven o'clock: Sir Eyre Coote, Colonel Pennington, and several more accompanied us down stairs, and saw us into our chaise. There could not be greater attention paid to any visitors. Sir Eyre spoke of the hardships which Dr. Johnson had before him. BOSWELL. Considering what he has said of us, we must make him feel something rough in Scotland.' Sir Eyre said to him, 'You must change your name, Sir.' BOSWELL. ‘Ay, to Dr. M'Gregor'.'

We got safely to Inverness, and put up at Mackenzie's inn. Mr. Keith, the collector of Excise here, my old acquaintance at Ayr, who had seen us at the Fort, visited us in the evening, and engaged us to dine with him next day, promising to breakfast with us, and take us to the English chapel; so that we were at once commodiously arranged.

1 Boswell's suggestion is explained by the following passage in Johnson's Works, viii. 463 :-'Mallet was by his original one of the Macgregors, a clan that became about sixty years ago, under the conduct of Robin Roy, so formidable and so infamous for violence and robbery, that the name was annulled by a legal abolition.'

V.-10

Not

146

The English chapel at Inverness. [August 29.

Not finding a letter here that I expected, I felt a momentary impatience to be at home. Transient clouds darkened my imagination, and in those clouds I saw events from which I shrunk; but a sentence or two of the Rambler's conversation gave me firmness, and I considered that I was upon an expedition for which I had wished for years, and the recollection of which would be a treasure to me for life.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 29.

Mr. Keith breakfasted with us. Dr. Johnson expatiated rather too strongly upon the benefits derived to Scotland from the Union', and the bad state of our people before it. I am entertained with his copious exaggeration upon that subject; but I am uneasy when people are by, who do not know him as well as I do, and may be apt to think him narrow-minded'. I therefore diverted the subject.

The English chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. The altar was a bare fir table, with a coarse stool for kneeling on, covered with a piece of thick sail-cloth doubled, by way of cushion. The congregation was small. Mr. Tait, the clergyman, read prayers very well, though with much of the Scotch accent. He preached on 'Love your Enemies. It was remarkable that, when talking of the connections amongst men, he said, that some connected themselves with men of distinguished talents, and since they could not equal them, tried to deck themselves with their merit, by being their companions. The sentence was to this purpose. It had an odd coincidence with what might be said of my connecting myself with Dr. Johnson*.

-'Do not

1 See ante, iii. 466, where he said to an Irish gentleman :-' make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them.'

"It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson read this gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me. BOSWELL. See post, Oct. 12, note. St. Matthew, v. 44.

It is odd that Boswell did not suspect the parson, who, no doubt, had learnt the evening before from Mr. Keith that the two travellers After

August 29.]

Macbeth's castle.

147

After church we walked down to the Quay. We then went to Macbeth's castle'. I had a romantick satisfaction in seeing Dr. Johnson actually in it. It perfectly corresponds with Shakspear's description, which Sir Joshua Reynolds has so happily illustrated, in one of his notes on our immortal poet2:

'This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle sense,' &c.'

Just as we came out of it, a raven perched on one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I repeated

would be present at his sermon. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 283) says that one day at Sir Joshua's dinner-table, when his host praised Malone very highly for his laborious edition of Shakespeare, he (Northcote) 'rather hastily replied, “What a very despicable creature must that man be who thus devotes himself, and makes another man his god;" when Boswell, who sat at my elbow, and was not in my thoughts at the time, cried out "Oh! Sir Joshua, then that is me!"' Johnson (Works, ix. 23) more cautiously says:-' Here is a castle, called the castle of Macbeth.'

1

This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks that where those birds most breed and haunt the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakespeare asked himself, what is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented. This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestick life.' Johnson's Shakespeare. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 144-151) quotes other notes by Reynolds.

' In the original senses. Act i. sc. 6.

'The

148

Words coined by Johnson.

The raven himself is hoarse,

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements'.'

[August 29.

We dined at Mr. Keith's. Mrs. Keith was rather too attentive to Dr. Johnson, asking him many questions about his drinking only water. He repressed that observation, by saying to me, 'You may remember that Lady Errol took no notice of this.'

Dr. Johnson has the happy art (for which I have heard my father praise the old Earl of Aberdeen) of instructing himself, by making every man he meets tell him something of what he knows best. He led Keith to talk to him of the Excise in Scotland, and, in the course of conversation, mentioned that his friend Mr. Thrale, the great brewer, paid twenty thousand pounds a year to the revenue; and that he had four casks, each of which holds sixteen hundred barrels, -above a thousand hogsheads.

After this there was little conversation that deserves to be remembered. I shall therefore here again glean what I have omitted on former days. Dr. Gerrard, at Aberdeen, told us, that when he was in Wales, he was shewn a valley inhabited by Danes, who still retain their own language, and are quite a distinct people. Dr. Johnson thought it could not be true, or all the kingdom must have heard of it. He said to me, as we travelled, 'these people, Sir, that Gerrard talks of, may have somewhat of a peregrinity in their dialect, which relation has augmented to a different language.' I asked him if peregrinity was an English word: he laughed, and said, 'No.' I told him this was the second time that I had heard him coin a word. When Foote broke his leg, I observed that it would make him fitter for taking off George Faulkner as Peter Paragraph', poor George having a wooden

1 Act i. sc. 5.

2 Boswell forgets scoundrelism, ante, p. 120, which, I suppose, Johnson coined.

3 See ante, ii. 177, note 2. Peter Paragraph is one of the characters in Foote's Comedy of The Orators.

leg.