H. Burton's Hume, i. 466. Smollett, it should seem, believed in Ossian to the end. In Humphry Clinker, in the letter dated Sept. 3, he makes one of his characters write:--'The poems of Ossian are in every mouth. A famous antiquarian of this country, the laird of Macfarlane, at whose house we dined, can repeat them all in the original Gaelic.' See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10.
[890] I find in his letters only Sir A. Macdonald (ante, ii. 157) of whom this can be said.
[891] See Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 520 [p. 431]. BOSWELL.
[892] For the letter, see the end of Boswell's Hebrides.
[893] Fossilist is not in Johnson's Dictionary.
[894] 'Rasay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. Such a seat of hospitality amidst the winds and waters fills the imagination with a delightful contrariety of images.' Works, ix. 62.
[895] Page 103. BOSWELL.
[896] From Skye he wrote:--'The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated at every house as if we came to confer a benefit.' Piozzi Letters, i. 155.
[897] See ante, i. 443, note 2.
[898] I observed with much regret, while the first edition of this work was passing through the press (Aug. 1790), that this ingenious gentleman was dead. BOSWELL.
[899] See ante, p. 242.
[900] See ante, i. 187.
[901] See ante, ii. 121, 296, and post, under March 30, 1783.
[902] Johnson (Works, ix. 158) says that 'the mediocrity of knowledge' obtained in the Scotch universities, 'countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way, to employment, riches, and distinction.'
[903] Macpherson had great influence with the newspapers. Horace Walpole wrote in February, 1776:--'Macpherson, the Ossianite, had a pension of L600 a year from the Court, to supervise the newspapers.' In Dec. 1781, Walpole mentions the difficulty of getting 'a vindicatory paragraph' inserted in the papers, 'This was one of the great grievances of the time. Macpherson had a pension of L800 a year from Court for inspecting newspapers, and inserted what lies he pleased, and prevented whatever he disapproved of being printed.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 17, 483.
[904] This book was published in 1779 under the title of 'Remarks on Dr. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, by the Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M., Minister of Lismore, Argyleshire.' In 1817 it was reprinted at Glasgow together with Johnson's Journey, in one volume. The Remarks are a few pages shorter than the Journey. By 'another Scotchman,' Boswell certainly meant Macpherson.
[905] From a list in his hand-writing. BOSWELL.
[906] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears more.' Johnson's Works, ix. 47. 'The Highlanders are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that, if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false.' Ib 114.
[907] Of his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL. It was sold at five shillings a copy. It did not reach a second edition till 1785, when perhaps a fresh demand for it was caused by the publication of Boswell's Hebrides. Boswell, in a note, post, April 28, 1778, says that 4000 copies were sold very quickly. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 39) says that Cadell told her that he had sold 4000 copies the first week. This, I think, must be an exaggeration. A German translation was brought out this same year.
[908] Boswell, on the way to London, wrote to Temple:--'I have continual schemes of publication, but cannot fix. I am still very unhappy with my father. We are so totally different that a good understanding is scarcely possible. He looks on my going to London just now as an expedition, as idle and extravagant, when in reality it is highly improving to me, considering the company which I enjoy.' Letters of Boswell, p. 182.
[909] See post, under March 22, 1776.
[910] See ante, p. 292.
[911] 'A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson's Works, ix. 116.
[912] At Slanes Castle in Aberdeenshire he wrote:--'I had now travelled two hundred miles in Scotland, and seen only one tree not younger than myself.' Works, ix. 17. Goldsmith wrote from Edinburgh on Sept. 26, 1753:--'Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove, nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty.' Forsters Goldsmith, i. 433.
[913] This, like his pamphlet on Falkland's Islands, was published without his name.