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Tour to Pennant tells a fact. He need go no farther, except he pleases. He exhausts nothing; and no subject whatever has yet been exhausted. But Pennant has surely told a great deal. Here is a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is not seven." Notwithstanding this eloquent Oratio pro Pennantio, which they who have read this gentleman's Tours, and recollect the savage and the shopkeeper at Monboddo, will probably impute to the spirit of contradiction, I still think that he had better had given more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number of imperfect accounts.

Saturday, 18th September.-Before breakfast, Dr. Johnson came up to my room, to forbid me to mention that this was his birthday; but I told him I had done it already; at which he was displeased—I suppose from wishing to have nothing particular done on his account. Lady Macleod and I got into a warm dispute. She wanted to build a house upon a farm which she has taken, about five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other ornaments there; all of which I approved of; but insisted that the seat of the family should always be upon the rock of Dunvegan. JOHNSON. "Ay, in time we'll build all round this rock. You may make a very good house at the farm; but it must not be such as to tempt the Laird of Macleod to go thither to reside. Most of the great families of England have a secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house; let the new house be of that kind." The lady insisted that the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made; that it must always be a rude place; that it was a Herculean labour to make a dinner here. I was vexed to find the alloy of modern refinement in a lady who had so

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much old family spirit. "Madam," said I, "if once Tour to you quit this rock, there is no knowing where you may settle. You move five miles first; then to St. Andrews, as the late laird did; then to Edinburgh; and so on till you end at Hampstead, or in France. No, no; keep to the rock; it is the very jewel of the estate. It looks as if it had been let down from heaven by the four corners, to be the residence of a chief. Have all the comforts and conveniences of life upon it, but never leave Rorie More's cascade." "But," said she, "is it not enough if we keep it? Must we never have more convenience than Rorie More had? he had his beef brought to dinner in one basket, and his bread in another. Why not as well be Rorie More all over, as live upon his rock? And should not we tire, in looking perpetually on this rock? It is very well for you, who have a fine place, and every thing easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You would not live upon it yourself." "Yes, madam," said I, "I would live upon it, were I Laird of Macleod, and should be unhappy if I were not upon it." JOHNSON (with a strong voice and most determined manner). "Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit; he would make his bed in the dungeon." I felt a degree of elation, at finding my resolute feudal enthusiasm thus confirmed by such a sanction. The lady was puzzled a little. She still returned to her pretty farm-rich ground-fine garden, Madam," said Dr. Johnson, were they in Asia, I would not leave the rock'." My opinion on this subject is still the

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[Dunvegan well deserves the stand which was made by Dr. Johnson in its defence. Its greatest inconvenience was that of access. This had been originally obtained from the sea, by a subterranean staircase, partly arched, partly cut in the rock, which, winding up through the cliff, opened into the court of the castle. This passage, at all times very inconvenient, had been abandoned, and was ruinous. A very indifferent substitute had been made by a road, which,

Tour to same. An ancient family residence ought to be a Hebrid. primary object; and though the situation of Dun

vegan be such that little can be done here in gardening or pleasure ground, yet, in addition to the veneration acquired by the lapse of time, it has many circumstances of natural grandeur, suited to the seat of a Highland chief: it has the sea-islands-rocks -hills-a noble cascade; and when the family is again in opulence, something may be done by art1.

Mr. Donald M'Queen went away to-day, in order to preach at Braccadale next day. We were so comfortably situated at Dunvegan, that Dr. Johnson could hardly be moved from it. I proposed to him that we should leave it on Monday. "No, sir,” said he, "I will not go before Wednesday. I will have some more of this good." However, as the weather was at this season so bad, and so very uncertain, and we had a great deal to do yet, Mr. M'Queen and I prevailed with him to agree to set out on Monday, if the day should be good. Mr. M'Queen, though it was inconvenient for him to be absent from his harvest, engaged to wait on Monday at Ulinish for us. When he was going away, Dr. Johnson said, "I shall ever retain a great regard for you;" then asked him

rising from the harbour, reached the bottom of the moat, and then ascended to the gate by a very long stair. The present chief, whom I am happy to call my friend, has made a perfectly convenient and characteristic access, which gives a direct approach to the further side of the moat, in front of the castle gate, and surmounts the chasm by a drawbridge, which would have delighted Rorie More himself. I may add that neither Johnson nor Boswell were antiquaries, otherwise they must have remarked, amongst the Cimelia of Dunvegan, the fated or fairy banner, said to be given to the clan by a Banshee, and a curious drinking cup (probably), said to have belonged to the family when kings of the Isle of Man certainly of most venerable antiquity.-WALTER SCOTT.]

' [Something has indeed been, partly in the way of accommodation and ornament, partly in improvements yet more estimable, under the direction of the present beneficent Lady of Macleod. She has completely acquired the language of her husband's clan, in order to qualify herself to be their effectual benefactress. She has erected schools, which she superintends herself, to introduce among them the benefits, knowledge, and comforts of more civilized society; and a young and beautiful woman has done more for the enlarged happiness of this primitive people than had been achieved for ages before.-WALTER SCOTT.]

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if he had the "Rambler." Mr. M'Queen said, "No, Tour to but my brother has it." JOHNSON. "Have you the "Idler?" M'QUEEN. "No, sir." JOHNSON. "Then I will order one for you at Edinburgh, which you will keep in remembrance of me." Mr. M'Queen was much pleased with this. He expressed to me, in the strongest terms, his admiration of Dr. Johnson's wonderful knowledge, and every other quality for which he is distinguished. I asked Mr. M'Queen if he was satisfied with being a minister in Sky. He said he was; but he owned that his forefathers having been so long there, and his having been born there, made a chief ingredient in forming his contentment. I should have mentioned, that on our left hand, between Portree and Dr. Macleod's house, Mr. M'Queen told me there had been a college of the Knights Templars; that tradition said so; and that there was a ruin remaining of their church, which had been burnt: but I confess Dr. Johnson has weakened my belief in remote tradition. In the dispute about Anaitis, Mr. M'Queen said, Asia Minor was peopled by Scythians, and, as they were the ancestors of the Celts, the same religion might be in Asia Minor and Sky. JOHNSON. "Alas! sir, what can a nation that has not letters tell of its original? I have always difficulty to be patient when I hear authors gravely quoted, as giving accounts of savage nations, which accounts they had from the savages themselves. What can the M'Craas tell about themselves a thousand years ago1? There

["What can the M'Craas tell of themselves a thousand years ago?" More than the Doctor would suppose. I have a copy of their family history, written by Mr. John Mac Ra, minister of Dingwal, in Rosshire, in 1702. In this history, they are averred to have come over with those Fitzgeralds now holding the name of M'Kenzie, at the period of the battle of Largs, in 1263. I was indulged with a copy of the pedigree by the consent of the principal persons of the clan in 1826, and had the original in my possession for some time. It is modestly drawn up, and apparently with all the accuracy which can be expected when tradition must be necessarily much relied upon. The name was in Irish Mac Grath, softened in the Highlands into Mac Ra, Mac Corow, Mac

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Tour to is no tracing the connexion of ancient nations, but by language; and therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations. If you find the same language in distant countries, you may be sure that the inhabitants of each have been the same people; that is to say, if you find the languages a good deal the same; for a word here and there being the same will not do. Thus Butler, in his 'Hudibras,' remembering that penguin, in the Straits of Magellan, signifies a bird with a white head, and that the same word has, in Wales, the signification of a white-headed wench 1 (pen head, and guin white), by way of ridicule, concludes that the people of those straits are Welsh."

1

A young gentleman of the name of M'Lean, nephew to the laird of the Isle of Muck, came this morning; and, just as we sat down to dinner, came the laird of the Isle of Muck himself, his lady, sister to Talisker, two other ladies, their relations, and a daughter of the late M'Leod of Hamer, who wrote a treatise on the second-sight, under the designation of "Theophilus Insulanus." It was somewhat droll to hear this laird called by his title. Muck would have sounded ill; so he was called which went off with great readiness. now written, is unseemly, but is not original Erse, which is Mouach, signifying the Sows' Island. Buchanan calls it Insula Porcorum. It is so called from its form. Some call it Isle of Monk. The laird insists that this is the proper name. It

Isle of Muck, The name, as so bad in the

Rae, &c.; and in the Lowlands, where the patronymic was often dropped, by the names of Crow, Craw, &c.-WALTER SCOTT.]

[It is not very intelligible why the_white-headed wench is mentioned: any white head would be called penguin.-ED.]

[The work of "Theophilus Insulanus" was written in as credulous a style as either Dr. Johnson or his biographer could have desired.-WALTER SCOTT.]