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there should be such a deficiency in civilized times. Tour to He acknowledged the justice of the remark. But perhaps some generations may pass before the want is supplied. Dr. Johnson observed to me, how quietly people will endure an evil, which they might at any time very easily remedy; and mentioned as an instance, that the present family of Rasay had possessed the island for more than four hundred years', and never made a commodious landing-place, though a few men with pickaxes might have cut an ascent of stairs out of any part of the rock in a week's time.

The north end of Rasay is as rocky as the south end. From it I saw the little isle of Fladda, belonging to Rasay, all fine green ground; and Rona, which is of so rocky a soil that it appears to be a pavement. I was told, however, that it has a great deal of grass in the interstices. The laird has it all in his own hands. At this end of the island of Rasay is a cave in a striking situation; it is in a recess of a great cleft, a good way up from the sea. Before it the ocean roars, being dashed against monstrous broken rocks; grand and awful propugnacula. On the right hand of it is a longitudinal cave, very low at the entrance, but higher as you advance. The sea having scooped it out, it seems strange and unaccountable that the interior part, where the water must have operated with less force, should be loftier than that which is more immediately exposed to its violence. The roof of it is all covered with a kind of petrifications formed by drops, which perpetually distil from it. The first cave has been a place of much safety. I find a great difficulty in describing visible objects. I must own too that the old castle

'[Though Johnson thus censured Rasay and his ancestors for having remained four hundred years without rendering their island accessible by a landing-place, yet, when he came to write his Journal, he remembered that, perhaps, it was only for the last few years that it was desirable it should be accessible.-ED ]

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Tour to and cave, like many other things, of which one hears much, did not answer my expectations. People are every where apt to magnify the curiosities of their country.

This island has abundance of black cattle, sheep, and goats; a good many horses, which are used for ploughing, carrying out dung, and other works of husbandry. I believe the people never ride. There are indeed no roads through the island, unless a few detached beaten tracts deserve that name. Most of the houses are upon the shore; so that all the people have little boats, and catch fish. There is great plenty of potatoes here. There are black-cock in extraordinary abundance, moor-fowl, plover and wild pigeons, which seemed to me to be the same as we have in pigeon-houses, in their state of nature. Rasay has no pigeon-house. There are no hares nor rabbits in the island, nor was there ever known to be a fox, till last year, when one was landed on it by some malicious person, without whose aid he could not have got thither, as that animal is known to be a very bad swimmer. He has done much mischief. There is a great deal of fish caught in the sea round Rasay; it is a place where one may live in plenty, and even in luxury. There are no deer; but Rasay told us he would get some.

They reckon it rains nine months in the year in this island, owing to its being directly opposite to the western coast of Sky, where the watery clouds are broken by high mountains. The hills here, and indeed all the heathy grounds in general, abound with the sweet-smelling plant which the Highlanders call gaul, and (I think) with dwarf juniper in many places. There is enough of turf, which is their fuel,

[So in all the editions, but the castern coast of Sky is next to Rasay. -ED.]

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and it is thought there is a mine of coal. Such are Tour to the observations which I made upon the island of Rasay, upon comparing it with the description given by Martin, whose book we had with us.

There has been an ancient league between the families of Macdonald and Rasay. Whenever the head of either family dies, his sword is given to the head of the other. The present Rasay has the late Sir James Macdonald's sword. Old Rasay joined the Highland army in 1745, but prudently guarded against a forfeiture, by previously conveying his estate to the present gentleman, his eldest son. On that occasion, Sir Alexander, father of the late Sir James Macdonald, was very friendly to his neighbour. "Don't be afraid, Rasay," said he, "I'll use all my interest to keep you safe; and if your estate should be taken, I'll buy it for the family." And he would have done it.

Let me now gather some gold dust, some more fragments of Dr. Johnson's conversation, without regard to order of time. He said, "he thought very highly of Bentley; that no man now went so far in the kinds of learning that he cultivated; that the many attacks on him were owing to envy, and to a desire of being known, by being in competition with such a man; that it was safe to attack him, because he never answered his opponents, but let them die away. It was attacking a man who would not beat them, because his beating them would make them live the longer. And he was right not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong; so it was better to leave things to their general appearance, than own himself to have erred in particulars." He said, "Mallet was the prettiest dressed puppet about town, and always kept good company. That, from his way of talking, he

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Tour to saw, and always said, that he had not written any part of the Life of the Duke of Marlborough, though perhaps he intended to do it at some time, in which case he was not culpable in taking the pension. That he imagined the duchess furnished the materials for her Apology, which Hooke wrote, and Hooke furnished the words and the order, and all that in which the art of writing consists. That the duchess had not superior parts, but was a bold frontless woman, who knew how to make the most of her opportunities in life. That Hooke got a large sum of money for writing her Apology. That he wondered Hooke should have been weak enough to insert so profligate a maxim, as that to tell another's secret to one's friend is no breach of confidence; though perhaps Hooke, who was a virtuous man, as his History shows, and did not wish her well, though he wrote her Apology, might see its ill tendency, and yet insert it at her desire. He was acting only ministerially." I apprehend, however, that Hooke was bound to give his best advice. I speak as a lawyer. Though I have had clients whose causes I could not, as a private man, approve; yet, if I undertook them, I would not do any thing that might be prejudicial to them, even at their desire, without warning them of their danger.

Saturday, 11th September. It was a storm of wind and rain, so we could not set out. I wrote some of this journal, and talked awhile with Dr. Johnson in his room, and passed the day, I cannot well say how, but very pleasantly. I was here amused to find Mr. Cumberland's comedy of the "Fashionable Lover," in which he has very well drawn a Highland character, Colin Macleod, of the same name with the family under whose roof we now were. Dr. Johnson was much pleased with the Laird

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of Macleod', who is indeed a most promising youth, Tour to and with a noble spirit struggles with difficulties, and endeavours to preserve his people. He has been left with an incumbrance of forty thousand pounds debt, and annuities to the amount of thirteen hundred pounds a year. Dr. Johnson said, "If he gets the better of all this, he 'll be a hero; and I hope he will. I have not met with a young man who had more desire to learn, or who has learnt more. I have seen nobody that I wish more to do a kindness to than Macleod." Such was the honourable eulogium on this young chieftain, pronounced by an accurate observer, whose praise was never lightly bestowed.

There is neither justice of peace nor constable in Rasay. Sky has Mr. Macleod of Ulinish, who is the sheriff substitute, and no other justice of peace. The want of the execution of justice is much felt among the islanders. Macleod very sensibly observed, that taking away the heritable jurisdictions had not been of such service in the islands as was imagined. They had not authority enough in lieu of them. What could formerly have been settled at once, must now either take much time and trouble, or be neglected. Dr. Johnson said, "A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose. Now destroying the

[The late General Macleod, born in 1754. In 1776, he entered the army raising, then, an independent company, and in 1780, the second battalion of the forty-second, which he led to India, where he served with great distinction, and rose to the rank of a general officer. On his return home, he became M.P. for the county of Inverness, as his grandfather had been; but so far from extinguishing the debt on his estate, he increased it; for though he had sold a great tract of land in Harris, he left at his death, in 1801, the original debt of 50,000l. increased to 70,0007. He began, in the year 1785, to write the memoirs of his life; but did not proceed far. By the favour of his son, the present Macleod, now M. P. for Sudbury, the editor is in possession of this interesting fragment of auto-biography; and as the greater part of it relates to Dr. Johnson's visit, and to subjects discussed in his and Mr. Boswell's tours, the editor thinks that it will be not an inappropriate, and certainly not an unacceptable addition to the appendix of this work.-ED.]

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