Travellers' Tales of Scotland

The following is from Travellers' Tales of Scotland by R. H. Coats:

XIII - Samuel Johnson

(1773)

"A GENEROUS and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than by an eminent degree of curiosity, nor is that curiosity ever more agreeably or usefully employed than in examining the laws and customs of foreign nations." Such were the sentiments of the most representative Englishman of the eighteenth century when he set out for Scotland in the year 1773, dressed in "a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair buttons of the same colour, a large bushy, greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles." Dr. Samuel Johnson was certainly designed by nature to be a traveller. Had he only been rich enough, he once remarked, he would have loved to "go to Cairo and down the Red Sea to Bengal and take a ramble in India." It was also a fond ambition of his to "leave some Latin verses at the Grand Chartreuse," and on one occasion, says Boswell, he "expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China." But poverty first of all, and then old age, prevented the realisation of these happy dreams, and Johnson had perforce to content himself with such nearer flights as a tour in Scotland or in Wales or a flying visit to Paris might afford.

Of these the journey into Scotland was by far the most difficult and perilous. The average Londoner of the mid-eighteenth century regarded the Highlands as a wild, inhospitable region, from which had just descended hordes of savage warriors in the train of the Young Pretender. To leave the safe and comfortable haunts of the metropolis, and penetrate into a land of bogs and Jacobites, was to face risks which might well strike terror into the heart of even the most foolhardy adventurer. Johnson especially was a Londoner of Londoners, and it must have seemed incredible that he of all men should ever be willing to exchange Fleet Street for Corriechatachin, or venture his unwieldy body in an open boat among the swirling eddies of the Western Isles. But that "eminent degree of curiosity," which marks the generous mind, was strong enough in Dr. Johnson to bear down every obstacle. The philosopher was attracted by the prospect of "contemplating a system of life almost totally different from that which he was accustomed to see." Ever since Martin's Account of Scotland had been put into his hands, as a young man, he had conceived an insatiable desire to look on the face of the country for himself, to see its rocks and waterfalls and frowning mountains, to hear old traditions and observe antiquated manners. And if the venture meant incessant movement and activity in the open air, what could be imagined more calculated to recommend it? Was it not just the occupation for which he had often longed? "If I had no duties," wrote Johnson once, "and no references to the future, I would spend my life in a postchaise with a pretty woman."

In the present instance, horseback had to be substituted for the postchaise, and, instead of the pretty woman, there was James Boswell. A stranger complement to himself could scarcely have been imagined. Johnson was sixty-four at the time, and Boswell thirty-three. The former was a moralist and a profound thinker, gifted with an unusually masculine and robust understanding. The latter may best be described as a fop of genius, who had not wit enough to discern when he was making himself ridiculous. Boswell was the sort of person who could write gravely of himself that "he had thought more than anybody supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge." He had a way of producing Ogden's Sermons on Prayer during the tour, in season and out of season, and was fastidious enough on one occasion to fold himself delicately in sheets and sleep off like a gentleman, while Johnson was content to pass the night in a riding-coat on the floor. Maclean of Coll took the true measure of James Boswell when he bade him hold on to a rope during a storm at sea, not because there was any need for his doing so, but simply to keep the fellow out of mischief. Yet Johnson had a great liking for Boswell. His name was a password everywhere, and "his gaiety of conversation and civility of manners were sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel" in the barren and cheerless regions they were about to enter. And if annoying and fatuous remarks did occasionally fall from him to try the doctor's patience, still, Boswell was "the best travelling companion in the world," and he had the distinguishing merit of being "a Scotchman without the faults of one." "Sir," said Johnson to him in a word of generous praise, "you are the most unscottified of your countrymen. You are almost the only instance I have known who did not at every other sentence bring in some other Scotchman."

The compliment, it is to be feared, was but a left-handed one, for, in thus eulogizing the man, the sage somewhat vilified the nation. That Johnson had a prejudice against Scotsmen is well known. He scrupled not to define oats, in his dictionary, as "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people," and when the offence was pointed out to him, he candidly admitted that the words were intended to wound. But the cause of his antipathy is not so easy to discover. One theory is that Johnson never could forgive the Scots for having delivered King Charles I to his persecutors; another, that he had a violent dislike to the statesmanship of Lord Bute. Reynolds was of opinion that the prejudice was aroused by the tendency of Scotsmen, when in England, to employ none but Scottish tradesmen and Scottish servants. Boswell concluded that he must have been soured by meeting so many Scots adventurers in London who had been advanced beyond their merits, and he tells us how indignant he once was on hearing that a Scotsman had promoted a friend of his to the headmastership of an English school, merely on the ground that he was a fellow-countryman. The probability is that Johnson was more amused than anything else by the inveterate disposition of Scotsmen to stand by one another through thick and thin, and to uphold the honour of their country at whatever cost. "A Scotchman must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, he will not be very diligent to detect it." It is not that he did not like individual Scotsmen when they merited his favour. Six out of seven of his amanuenses were of that nationality, and he once said to Boswell, "When I find a Scotchman to whom an Englishman is as a Scotchman, that Scotchman is as an Englishman to me." One thing, however, never failed to tickle him. If Scotsmen were so proud of their country, why did they ever leave it? Leith, he said, might well be pronounced Lethe, "for when a Scotchman sets out from this port for England, he forgets his native land." Scotland, it was true, might have fine prospects. So had Norway fine prospects. And Lapland had fine prospects. "But, sir, let me tell you that the finest prospect a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads to England."

This was the high road, then, which Johnson himself was now to travel, but in an opposite direction. The route lay round the east coast of Scotland, from Berwick to Inverness, and thence across country to the Isle of Skye. From this point the travellers wended their way southwards through Coll and Mull, returning to London by Oban, Inveraray, Glasgow, and Auchinleck. During the ninety-four days which this journey occupied, Johnson constrained himself to put forth an incredible amount of personal exertion, and met with a bewildering variety of scenes and incidents. He visited dukes in their mansion-houses, professors in the universities, and interviewed the poorest crofters in their miserable hovels. He was taken everywhere and shown everything, from the Buller of Buchan to the horn of Rorie More in Dunvegan Castle. He met Flora Macdonald in her ancestral home, and slept in the self-same bed which Bonnie Prince Charlie had once occupied. And some things he saw which were probably not pointed out to him. He noticed with surprise that in Scotland there were "stone hedges," and houses that turned their gables to the street. He marvelled to find a harpsichord in Inchkenneth, gooseberries in Skye, and an orchard in Fochabers. He saw, what he had never seen before, "limpets and mussels in their natural state," as well as boys and girls in a similar condition, running about, that is to say, without shoes and stockings. Caves were shown to him where once entire clans had been smoked and smothered, and he was called on to speculate on the mysteries of druid temples and of hornless cattle.

How vividly the observer of all this is brought before us in those incomparable journals which both he and Boswell have left for our edification! Anon he is displaying himself to the citizens of Aberdeen, proudly wearing his new burgess ticket like a feather in his cap, or he is strutting about Coll with broadsword and target, and a blue Highland bonnet perched upon his wig. We see him now being carried ashore by the stalwart boatmen of Iona; now sleeping peacefully in a wayside hut, with a coloured handkerchief about his head now solemnly declaiming on a wild moor, and in the midst of a storm of rain, the lines spoken by Macbeth when he met the witches; and now standing for some time with his ear to the drone of a bagpipe. Johnson could do this with impunity because, on his own confession, "to know a drum from a trumpet, and a bagpipe from a guitar "was the utmost extent of his musical knowledge. Perhaps the most amazing scene of all was that which might have been witnessed in the Isle of Raasay when, to beguile, let us suppose, the tedium of a wet evening, a certain married lady of the company seated herself on Johnson's knee, put her arms round his neck and began to kiss him. The doctor was in no way embarrassed by these attentions. He had already exalted to the same honoured position a certain young woman "who came to consult him on Methodism." On this occasion, he good-humouredly responded to the attentions he received, and challenged his fair admirer to make a kissing-game of it. "Do it again," he exclaimed, after one taste of the ruby lips, "and let us see who will tire first." These, however, were but occasional relaxations. Usually he was claimed by much more serious pursuits. He had come in search of knowledge, and most diligently did he probe about in all sorts of corners to acquire it. It is interesting to find how extensive was the range of subjects on which Johnson was prepared to exercise that "eminent degree of curiosity," which he had noted as the distinguishing mark of a generous and elevated mind. He enquired into funeral customs and marriage dowries. He endeavoured to learn what were the relations subsisting between laird, factor, and tenant; how many fighting men each of the islands had been able to raise in the Jacobite Rising and in the American War; and what had been the effect of depriving the natives of their arms and Highland dress. Why was it that in certain places eels had come to be generally disliked? What was peat made of, and why was it combustible? How did foxes and other preying animals find their way over from the mainland to the Isle of Skye? For what mysterious reason was Loch Ness never frozen over, and how was it to be explained that two huge rocks were perched on the top of the island of Coll? Why should castles be built on the ends of promontories, and what were the proportions of charcoal and saltpetre in the making of gunpowder? These were some of the problems and speculations on which the fertile brain of Johnson was occupied unceasingly.

Nor did he content himself with playing the humble part of a listener and enquirer. Johnson would be talking, and talking constantly and ostentatiously. Whether the subject were tanning or brewing or coining, he delivered himself sententiously and authoritatively upon it, to the astonishment of his hearers. If other topics failed, he was ready to take either side in a discussion as to whether the London shopkeeper was in any way superior to an American savage. It need hardly be said that the terms in which he expressed himself were characteristically Johnsonian. The brandy he tasted at Inverary was pungent in its smell but not "empyreumatic," while the singing of the Skye boatmen was decidedly "proceleusmatic." As for certain mountains, it would be incorrect to call them immense. They could only properly be described as "considerable protuberances." Johnson was wise enough, being in Scotland, to talk extensively and well on theological subjects, and he made weighty observations during the tour on Immortality, the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Origin of Evil. The theme, however, on which he seems to have discoursed most warmly (for the laughter of Boswell at this point irritated him extremely) was the care and management of seraglios. Johnson could never bear to have aught but vegetable substances worn next the skin, and on one occasion he astonished the company by gravely and deliberately remarking that he had "often thought" that if ever he kept a seraglio, he would make a point of insisting that none of the ladies belonging to it should wear woollen gowns. Either the garments should be linen or they should be cotton.

The three subjects of enquiry to which Johnson devoted the greatest amount of attention were second sight, emigration, and the controversy respecting Ossian. He was most anxious to find evidence for the power of penetrating futurity, supposed to be possessed by certain Highland seers, but he altogether failed to collect any that could satisfy him. "I never could advance my curiosity to conviction," he wrote, "but came away at last only willing to believe." In emigration Johnson was interested because of what it signified, the decay of the ancient feudalism. As a high-and-dry old Tory, he took very unkindly to the break-up of the older institutions, and was never better pleased than when Boswell flatteringly assured him that he would have made a splendid chief. For Macleod of Raasay he felt the greatest reverence, inasmuch as he ruled over an island which had remained in the family for more than four hundred years, and he beamed with satisfaction when, through the manoeuvring of Boswell, an invitation was extended to him to dine with the Duke of Argyll. Yet Johnson could not but observe, and observe with sorrow, that a great change was passing over Scottish social life. The old happy days of feudalism were gone or going. Government by the State was rapidly taking the place of self-government by the clans. Rents were going up; the chiefs themselves were degenerating from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords and old targets of war were being debased to become the covers of farmers' buttermilk barrels. What wonder that an increasing number of Scotsmen were beginning to look for happiness and prosperity on a foreign strand, and that a new dance had recently been invented in the Highlands and called America, "to show how emigration catches till a whole neighbourhood is set afloat."

But the most intricate problem of all was that of Ossian. Macpherson's poem of Fingal was published in 1762, and claimed to be a faithful English translation of early epic remains in the Gaelic language. Johnson could not bring himself to believe that any such originals ever had existed, and he set forth from London resolved to ferret out those alleged ancient Erse MSS., if they were anywhere to be found. In vain various "proofs" were put before him. Boswell saw three MSS. which he thought had "a duskyness of antiquity" about them. Persons were brought forward who remembered or could recite a few familiar lines. When learned ministers were consulted, they could not be persuaded to admit that they had been deceived on a point that touched so nearly the honour of their country. But still the stubborn fact remained: not one of Macpherson's original MSS. had ever been produced, or honestly deposited in a public library. It could only be concluded that they were nowhere to be seen, and the Gaelic language possessed no written document that was older than a hundred years. So convinced was Johnson on this point that he jocularly offered to purchase and to live in an outlying little island called Scalpa, in order to set up a printing press there and publish to the world nothing but Erse MSS.

What, then, were Johnson's impressions of the country as a whole? In the first place, he was struck by the absence of large trees. "A tree might be a, show in Scotland," he wrote, "as a horse in Venice." One indeed was pointed out to him in St. Andrews, and he laughed uproariously to be told that there was at least one other in the country, some miles away. With this one exception, Johnson affirmed, not till he had travelled two hundred miles did he see a single tree that was older than himself. In these distressing circumstances, his own stout oak cudgel became an article of special value to him. This was the famous staff whose length was over six feet, and whose diameter at the upper end was nearly three inches. Johnson had the mortification to lose this precious companion in his wanderings through Mull, and he grieved over the loss inordinately, for there were nails driven into it at intervals which enabled him to take measurements by the foot and by the yard. Boswell endeavoured to console him with the hope that the stick might yet be recovered, but Johnson was incredulous. "No, no, my friend," said he, "it is not to be expected that any man in Mull who has got it will part with it. Consider, sir, the value of a piece of timber here!"

In the second place, Johnson was unfavourably impressed by the decay of learning in the towns he visited. He maintained that George Buchanan was the only man of genius the country had produced, and challenged anyone to name a single work of value written by a Scottish minister since the country had sunk into Presbyterianism. "Learning in Scotland is like bread in a besieged town. Every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal." So backward, indeed, appeared the state of culture and the polite arts, that Johnson was constrained to suggest that a new university might easily be established, and staffed by the various members of the London Club! This jest occasioned much merriment to Johnson, and was rolled as a sweet morsel under his tongue throughout the tour.

As for the religious aspect of the life he saw around him, Johnson could never reconcile himself to the worship and polity of Presbyterianism. He invariably gave an extra shilling to the clerk when he was taken to an English church, and he presented Lord Monboddo's black servant with a like amount when he learned that he had been duly baptized and properly confirmed. On the name of John Knox being mentioned, and the place of his burial discussed, Johnson loudly exclaimed, "I hope he is buried in the highway." A Church did not deserve to be treated as a Church which presumed to dispense with a liturgy in its worship, and sometimes even omitted the Lord's Prayer. So Johnson steadily refused to attend a Scottish service, even though the preacher were to be Dr. Robertson himself. "I will hear him," he said, "if he will get up into a tree and preach, but I will not give a sanction by my presence to a Presbyterian Assembly."

Another thing which impressed Johnson unfavourably in Scotland was its poverty and destitution. What wealth there was in the country, he maintained, had come to it through the Union with England, and even that highly advantageous partnership had not been able to make much difference as yet. "If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds," he snorted, "what remains for the rest of the nation?" Two hundred years previously, Scotsmen had been accustomed to boast that as many as a hundred eggs could be bought in the country for a penny. But they had grown wiser since those days, and now such stories were fewer, "lest the foreigner should happen to collect, not that eggs were many, but that pence were few." Johnson once remarked, in his own ponderous and pregnant way, that the cottager of the remoter districts was "seldom incommoded by corpulence," and laughed heartily over an anecdote which Wilkes would relate of one who had completely plundered no fewer than seven Scottish islands, only to re-embark with a net profit of three-and-sixpence!

But if in a few particulars Scotland appeared at a disadvantage, it made ample amends for all by the scale and magnificence of its hospitality. On this point Johnson seems to have been quite overcome. Civility, he found, was part of the natural character of Highlanders, and he could say that he was "treated in every house as if he had come to confer a benefit." The hospitality of Skye, especially, was like that of the golden age. So pleased was Johnson with the welcome he received at Raasay that, while there, he even fancied himself to be Ulysses, and the place Phaeacia, and remarked in an undertone to Boswell, "I know not how we shall get away." Perhaps, when we remember that this was the place where there was dancing every night, and where a lively little woman sat upon his knee, we shall scarcely be surprised that his affections were a little warmed. Most astonishing circumstance of all, the food in Scotland was of the best. Johnson, who was a skilled trencherman and a very fair judge of a good dinner, was regaled with veal in Edinburgh, roasted kid in Inverness, and admirable venison and generous wine in the Castle of Dunvegan. At Aberdeen he consumed several platefuls of Scotch broth, with barley and peas in it, and though he never tasted so strange a dish before, he was graciously pleased to commend it with the remark, "I don't care how soon I eat it again." Johnson found clean table linen and silver plate in the remotest Highlands, and only once had to fall back on a horn spoon. Best of all, he was everywhere provided with plentiful libations of tea, and had lavished on him the oatcakes, marmalades and etceteras of a Scottish breakfast, "a meal in which the Scots, whether of the lowlands or the mountains, must be confessed to excel us." These good things atoned for many hardships. "If an epicure could remove by a wish, in quest of sensual gratification, wherever he had supped, he would breakfast in Scotland."

The climax of the whole tour was undoubtedly the visit to Iona. When Johnson first set foot on this sacred ground, and beheld the impressive ruins of its former greatness, he was moved to sentiments of reverence which he has splendidly expressed in a well-known passage: "We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

It would be impossible to follow Johnson through the mazes of profound reflection upon life to which his Scottish experiences gave rise. One characteristic example of his ponderings must suffice. On hearing it reported that the phantoms of second sight were mostly evil, he fell into a strain of pensive, melancholy brooding on the miseries of the world. "Good seems to have the same proportion in those visionary scenes as it obtains in real life; almost all remarkable events have evil for their basis, and are either miseries incurred or miseries escaped. Our sense is so much stronger of what we suffer than of what we enjoy, that the ideas of pain predominate in almost every mind. What is recollection but a revival of vexations, or history but a record of wars, treasons, and calamities? Death, which is considered as the greatest evil, happens to all. The greatest good, be it what it will, is the lot but of a part."

These morbid moralisings, however, were mostly reserved for the journal. In the relaxation of social intercourse, Johnson was the gayest and cheerfullest of men. No one could turn a compliment more neatly than he, especially where the ladies were concerned, and he had clearly come to Scotland resolved both to please and to be pleased. He pressed half-a-crown on poor creatures whose utmost expectation was a shilling. He diverted himself, and his friends also, by gathering a township of Highland children into rows, and giving each one of them a copper penny. If some old crone had entertained him in her hut, he purchased her goodwill by a pinch of snuff, and if he came upon a company of soldiers from Fort Augustus, he furnished them with the means of indulging in a carouse. "All that we gave them was not much, but it detained them in the barn, either merry or quarrelling the whole night, and in the morning they went back to their work with great indignation at the bad quality of the whisky." Can we wonder that the good doctor was feted and acclaimed everywhere he went, and that his departure was the signal for admiring friends to vie with one another in shouting, "Toctor Shonson, Toctor Shonson, your health, your health!" With all these expressions of kindly feeling, the benevolent old gentleman was manifestly delighted. "Tell your friends," he wrote on his return home, "how well I speak of Scotch politeness, and Scotch hospitality, and Scotch beauty, and of everything Scotch but Scotch oatcakes and Scotch prejudices." The great tour was over, and had proved a complete success. Johnson brought back with him to London fewer dislikes, an enlarged circle of ideas, and the materials for a new book. He left behind him in Scotland, besides his lost cudgel, a host of new acquaintances and enthusiastic friends, every one of whom could say of him, in the words of Donald M'Leod, "When you see him first, you are struck with awful reverence; then you admire him; and then you love him cordially."

XIV - Sydney Smith (1798-1803)