117.
[886] This is not spoken of hare-coursing, where the game is taken or lost before the dog gets out of wind; but in chasing deer with the great Highland greyhound, Col's exploit is feasible enough. WALTER SCOTT.
[887] See ante, pp. 45, III, for Monboddo's notion.
[888] Mme. Riccoboni in 1767 wrote to Garrick of the French:--'Un mensonge grossier les revolte. Si on voulait leur persuader que les Anglais vivent de grenouilles, meurent de faim, que leurs femmes sont barbouillees, et jurent par toutes les lettres de l'alphabet, ils leveraient les epaules, et s'ecriraient, quel sot ose ecrire ces miseres-la? mais a Londres, diantre cela prend!' Garrick Corres. ii. 524.
[889] Just opposite to M'Quarrie's house the boat was swamped by the intoxication of the sailors, who had partaken too largely of M'Quarrie's wonted hospitality. WALTER SCOTT. Johnson wrote from Lichfield on June 13, 1775;--'There is great lamentation here for the death of Col. Lucy [Miss Porter] is of opinion that he was wonderfully handsome.' Piozzi Letters, i. 235. See ante, ii. 287.
[890] Iona.
[891] See ante, p. 237.
[892] See ante, 111. 229.
[893] Sir James Mackintosh says (Life, ii. 257):--'Dr. Johnson visited Iona without looking at Staffa, which lay in sight, with that indifference to natural objects, either of taste or scientific curiosity, which characterised him.' This is a fair enough sample of much of the criticism under which Johnson's reputation has suffered.
[894] Smollett in Humphry Clinker (Letter of Sept. 3) describes a Highland funeral. 'Our entertainer seemed to think it a disparagement to his family that not above a hundred gallons of whisky had been drunk upon such a solemn occasion.
[895] 'We then entered the boat again; the night came upon us; the wind rose; the sea swelled; and Boswell desired to be set on dry ground: we, however, pursued our navigation, and passed by several little islands in the silent solemnity of faint moon-shine, seeing little, and hearing only the wind and water.' Piozzi Letters, i. 176.
[896] Cicero De Finibus, ii. 32.
[897] I have lately observed that this thought has been elegantly expressed by Cowley:--
'Things which offend when present, and affright, In memory, well painted, move delight.'
BOSWELL.
The lines are found in the Ode upon His Majesty's Restoration and Return, stanza 12. They may have been suggested by Virgil's lines--
'Revocate animos, maestumque timorem Mittite; forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.'
Aeneid, i. 202.
[898] Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. The present respectable President of the Royal Society was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration, BOSWELL. Boswell again quotes this passage (which is found in Johnson's Works, ix. 145), ante, iii. 173. The President was Sir Joseph Banks, Johnson says in Rasselas, ch. xi:--'That the supreme being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another is the dream of idle superstition; but that some places may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly experience will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine will, perhaps, find himself mistaken, yet he may go thither without folly; he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned dishonours at once his reason and religion.'
[899] 'Sir Allan went to the headman of the island, whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds. He was, perhaps, proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our entertainment; however he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious require.' Johnson's Works, ix. 146.
[900] An Account of the Isle of Man. With a voyage to I-Columb-Kill. By W. Sacheverell, Esq., late Governour of Man. 1702.
[901] 'He that surveys it [the church-yard] attended by an insular antiquary may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to soothe his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions his delight is at an end.' Johnson's Works, ix. 148.
[902] On quitting the island Johnson wrote: 'We now left those illustrious ruins, by which Mr. Boswell was much affected, nor would I willingly be thought to have looked upon them without some emotion.' Ib. p. 150.
[903] Psalm xc. 4.
[904] Boswell wrote on Nov. 9, 1767:--'I am always for fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character which I must support.' Letters of Boswell, p. 122. Five weeks later he wrote:--'I have been as wild as ever;' and then comes a passage which the Editor has thought it needful to suppress. Ib.p.128.
[905] Boswell here speaks as an Englishman.