i. p. 36. BOSWELL. In the original after 'his wife's grandfather,' is added 'Lord Northumberland.' It was his wife's great-grandfather, the eighth Earl of Northumberland. He killed himself in 1585. Burke's Peerage.
[1118] Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 293) says of Robertson and Blair:--'Having been bred at a time when the common people thought to play with cards or dice was a sin, and everybody thought it an indecorum in clergymen, they could neither of them play at golf or bowls, and far less at cards or backgammon, and on that account were very unhappy when from home in friends' houses in the country in rainy weather. As I had set the first example of playing at cards at home with unlocked door [Carlyle was a minister], and so relieved the clergy from ridicule on that side, they both learned to play at whist after they were sixty.' See ante, iii. 23.
[1119] See ante, i. 149, and v. 350.
[1120] See ante, iv. 54.
[1121] He wrote to Boswell on Nov. 16, 1776 (ante, iii. 93):--'The expedition to the Hebrides was the most pleasant journey that I ever made.' In his Diary he recorded on Jan. 9, 1774:--'In the autumn I took a journey to the Hebrides, but my mind was not free from perturbation.' Pr. and Med. p. 136. The following letter to Dr. Taylor I have copied from the original in the possession of my friend Mr. M. M. Holloway:--
'DEAR SIR,
'When I was at Edinburgh I had a letter from you, telling me that in answer to some enquiry you were informed that I was in the Sky. I was then I suppose in the western islands of Scotland; I set out on the northern expedition August 6, and came back to Fleet-street, November 26. I have seen a new region.
'I have been upon seven of the islands, and probably should have visited many more, had we not begun our journey so late in the year, that the stormy weather came upon us, and the storms have I believe for about five months hardly any intermission.
'Your Letter told me that you were better. When you write do not forget to confirm that account. I had very little ill health while I was on the journey, and bore rain and wind tolerably well. I had a cold and deafness only for a few days, and those days I passed at a good house. I have traversed the east coast of Scotland from south to north from Edinburgh to Inverness, and the west coast from north to south, from the Highlands to Glasgow, and am come back as I went,
'Sir,
'Your affectionate humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Jan. 15, 1774.
'To the Reverend Dr. Taylor,
'in Ashbourn,
'Derbyshire.'
[1122] Johnson speaking of this tour on April 10, 1783, said:--'I got an acquisition of more ideas by it than by anything that I remember.' Ante, iv. 199.
[1123] See ante, p. 48.
[1124] See ante, i. 408, 443, note 2, and ii. 303.
[1125] 'It may be doubted whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.' Johnson's Works, ix. 8.
[1126] See ante, p. 69.
[1127] Lord Balmerino's estate was forfeited to the Crown on his conviction for high treason in 1746 (ante, i. 180).
[1128] 'I know not that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it.' Johnson's Works, ix. 122. See ante, p. 304.
[1129] See ante, ii. 300.
[1130] 'Strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur. This faculty of seeing things out of sight is local and commonly useless. It is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit.' Johnson's Works, ix. 106.
[1131] 'To the confidence of these objections it may be replied... that second sight is only wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no more difficulty than dreams.' Ib.
[1132] The fossilist of last century is the geologist of this. Neither term is in Johnson's Dictionary, but Johnson in his Journey (Works, ix. 43) speaks of 'Mr. Janes the fossilist.'
[1133] Ib. p. 157.
[1134] Ib. p. 6. I do not see anything silly in the story. It is however better told in a letter to Mrs. Thrale. Piozzi Letters, i. 112.
[1135] Mr. Orme, one of the ablest historians of this age, is of the same opinion. He said to me, 'There are in that book thoughts, which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished--like pebbles rolled in the ocean.' BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 300, and iii. 284.
[1136] See ante, iii. 301.
[1137] Johnson (Works, ix. 158) mentions 'a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it.' See ante, ii. 307, 311.
[1138] See ante, p. 269, note 1.
[1139] Every reader will, I am sure, join with me in warm admiration of the truly patriotic writer of this letter. I know not which most to applaud--that good sense and liberality of mind, which could see and admit the defects of his native country, to which no man is a more zealous friend:--or that candour, which induced him to give just praise to the minister whom he honestly and strenuously opposed. BOSWELL.