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Letters, a non-fiction book by Samuel Johnson |
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Letter 2. To Mrs. Thrale |
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_ LETTER II. To MRS. THRALE London, Aug. 13, 1765. MADAM,--If you have really so good an opinion of me as you express, it will not be necessary to inform you how unwillingly I miss the opportunity of coming to Brighthelmstone in Mr. Thrale's company; or, since I cannot do what I wish first, how eagerly I shall catch the second degree of pleasure, by coming to you and him, as soon as I can dismiss my work from my hands. I am afraid to make promises, even to myself; but I hope that the week after the next will be the end of my present business. When business is done, what remains but pleasure? and where should pleasure be sought, but under Mrs. Thrale's influence? Do not blame me for a delay by which I must suffer so much, and by which I suffer alone. If you cannot think I am good, pray think I am mending, and that in time I may deserve to be, dear madam, your, &c.
Lichfield, July 20, 1767. Madam,--Though I have been away so much longer than I purposed or expected, I have found nothing that withdraws my affections from the friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less desirous of reposing at that place, which your kindness and Mr. Thrale's allows me to call my home. Miss Lucy[a] is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised my esteem by many excellencies, very noble and resplendent, though a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Every thing else recalls to my remembrance years, in which I proposed what, I am afraid, I have not done, and promised myself pleasure which I have not found. But complaint can be of no use; and why then should I depress your hopes by my lamentations? I suppose it is the condition of humanity to design what never will be done, and to hope what never will be obtained. But, among the vain hopes, let me not number the hope which I have, of being long, dear madam, your, &c. [a] Miss Lucy Porter, daughter to Dr. Johnson's wife, by a former husband. IV.--TO THE SAME. Lichfield, August 14, 1769. MADAM,--I set out on Thursday morning, and found my companion, to whom I was very much a stranger, more agreeable than I expected. We went cheerfully forward, and passed the night at Coventry. We came in late, and went out early; and, therefore, I did not send for my cousin Tom: but I design to make him some amends for the omission. Next day we came early to Lucy, who was, I believe, glad to see us. She had saved her best gooseberries upon the tree for me; and, as Steele says, "I was neither too proud nor too wise" to gather them. I have rambled a very little "inter fontes et flumina nota," but I am not yet well. They have cut down the trees in George lane. Evelyn, in his book of Forest Trees, tells us of wicked men that cut down trees, and never prospered afterwards; yet nothing has deterred these audacious aldermen from violating the Hamadryads of George lane. As an impartial traveller, I must however tell, that, in Stow street, where I left a draw-well, I have found a pump; but the lading-well, in this ill fated George lane, lies shamefully neglected. I am going to-day, or to-morrow, to Ashbourne; but I am at a loss how I shall get back in time to London. Here are only chance coaches, so that there is no certainty of a place. If I do not come, let it not hinder your journey. I can be but a few days behind you; and I will follow in the Brighthelmstone coach. But I hope to come. I took care to tell Miss Porter, that I have got another Lucy. I hope she is well. Tell Mrs. Salusbury that I beg her stay at Streatham, for little Lucy's sake. I am, &c.
Lichfield, July 11, 1770. MADAM,--Since my last letter, nothing extraordinary has happened. Rheumatism, which has been very troublesome, is grown better. I have not yet seen Dr. Taylor, and July runs fast away. I shall not have much time for him, if he delays much longer to come or send. Mr. Green, the apothecary, has found a book, which tells who paid levies in our parish, and how much they paid, above a hundred years ago. Do you not think we study this book hard? Nothing is like going to the bottom of things. Many families, that paid the parish-rates, are now extinct, like the race of Hercules: "Pulvis et umbra sumus." What is nearest us, touches us most. The passions rise higher at domestick, than at imperial, tragedies. I am not wholly unaffected by the revolutions of Sadler street; nor can forbear to mourn a little when old names vanish away, and new come into their place. Do not imagine, madam, that I wrote this letter for the sake of these philosophical meditations; for when I began it, I had neither Mr. Green, nor his book, in my thoughts; but was resolved to write, and did not know what I had to send, but my respects to Mrs. Salusbury, and Mr. Thrale, and Harry, and the Misses. I am, dearest madam, your, &c.
Ashbourne, July 23, 1770. DEAREST MADAM,--There had not been so long an interval between my two last letters, but that, when I came hither, I did not at first understand the hours of the post. I have seen the great bull; and very great he is. I have seen, likewise, his heir apparent, who promises to inherit all the bulk, and all the virtues, of his sire. I have seen the man who offered a hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf. Matlock, I am afraid, I shall not see, but I purpose to see Dovedale; and, after all this seeing, I hope to see you. I am, &c.
Ashbourne, July 3, 1771. DEAR MADAM,--Last Saturday I came to Ashbourne; the dangers or the pleasures of the journey I have, at present, no disposition to recount; else might I paint the beauties of my native plains; might I tell of the "smiles of nature, and the charms of art;" else might I relate, how I crossed the Staffordshire canal, one of the great efforts of human labour, and human contrivance, which, from the bridge on which I viewed it, passed away on either side, and loses itself in distant regions, uniting waters that nature had divided, and dividing lands which nature had united. I might tell how these reflections fermented in my mind, till the chaise stopped at Ashbourne, at Ashbourne in the Peak. Let not the barren name of the Peak terrify you; I have never wanted strawberries and cream. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope, in time, to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him, too, a hundred years hence. I am, &c.
Ashbourne, July 10, 1771. DEAREST MADAM,--I am obliged to my friend Harry, for his remembrance, but think it a little hard that I hear nothing from Miss. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk, he went to see the bull, and said, that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm? _Toujours_ strawberries and cream. Dr. Taylor is much better, and my rheumatism is less painful. Let me hear, in return, as much good of you and of Mrs. Salusbury. You despise the Dog and Duck: things that are at hand are always slighted. I remember that Dr. Grevil, of Gloucester, sent for that water when his wife was in the same danger; but he lived near Malvern, and you live near the Dog and Duck. Thus, in difficult cases, we naturally trust most what we least know. Why Bromefield, supposing that a lotion can do good, should despise laurel-water, in comparison with his own receipt, I do not see; and see, still less, why he should laugh at that which Wall thinks efficacious. I am afraid philosophy will not warrant much hope in a lotion. Be pleased to make my compliments from Mrs. Salusbury to Susy. I am, &c.
October 31, 1772. MADAM,--Though I am just informed, that, by some accidental negligence, the letter, which I wrote on Thursday, was not given to the post, yet I cannot refuse myself the gratification of writing again to my mistress; not that I have any thing to tell, but that, by showing how much I am employed upon you, I hope to keep you from forgetting me. Doctor Taylor asked me, this morning, on what I was thinking; and I was thinking on Lucy. I hope Lucy is a good girl. But she cannot yet be so good as Queeney. I have got nothing yet for Queeney's cabinet. I hope dear Mrs. Salusbury grows no worse. I wish any thing could be found that would make her better. You must remember her admonition, and bustle in the brewhouse. When I come, you may expect to have your hands full with all of us. Our bulls and cows are all well, but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull. Our deer have died, but many are left. Our waterfall, at the garden, makes a great roaring this wet weather. And so no more at present from, madam, your, &c.
November 23, 1772. DEAR MADAM,--I am sorry that none of your letters bring better news of the poor dear lady. I hope her pain is not great. To have a disease confessedly incurable, and apparently mortal, is a very heavy affliction; and it is still more grievous, when pain is added to despair. Every thing else in your letter pleased me very well, except that when I come I entreat I may not be flattered, as your letters flatter me. You have read of heroes and princes ruined by flattery, and, I question, if any of them had a flatterer so dangerous as you. Pray keep strictly to your character of governess. I cannot yet get well; my nights are flatulent and unquiet, but my days are tolerably easy, and Taylor says, that I look much better than when I came hither. You will see when I come, and I can take your word. Our house affords no revolutions. The great bull is well. But I write, not merely to think on you, for I do that without writing, but to keep you a little thinking on me. I perceive that I have taken a broken piece of paper, but that is not the greatest fault that you must forgive in, madam, your, &c.
November 27, 1772. DEAR MADAM,--If you are so kind as to write to me on Saturday, the day on which you will receive this, I shall have it before I leave Ashbourne. I am to go to Lichfield on Wednesday, and purpose to find my way to London, through Birmingham and Oxford. I was yesterday at Chatsworth. It is a very fine house. I wish you had been with me to see it; for then, as we are apt to want matter of talk, we should have gained something new to talk on. They complimented me with playing the fountain, and opening the cascade. But I am of my friend's opinion, that when one has seen the ocean, cascades are but little things. I am in hope of a letter to-day from you or Queeney, but the post has made some blunder, and the packet is not yet distributed. I wish it may bring me a little good of you all. I am, &c.
Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1773. MADAM,--The inequalities of human life have always employed the meditation of deep thinkers, and I cannot forbear to reflect on the difference between your condition and my own. You live upon mock-turtle, and stewed rumps of beef; I dined, yesterday, upon crumpets. You sit with parish officers, caressing and caressed, the idol of the table, and the wonder of the day. I pine in the solitude of sickness, not bad enough to be pitied, and not well enough to be endured. You sleep away the night, and laugh, or scold away the day. I cough and grumble, and grumble and cough. Last night was very tedious, and this day makes no promises of much ease. However, I have this day put on my shoe, and hope that gout is gone. I shall have only the cough to contend with, and I doubt whether I shall get rid of that without change of place. I caught cold in the coach as I went away, and am disordered by very little things. Is it accident or age? I am, dearest madam, &c.
March 17, 1773. DEAR MADAM,--To tell you that I am sorry, both for the poor lady and for you, is useless. I cannot help either of you. The weakness of mind is, perhaps, only a casual interruption or intermission of the attention, such as we all suffer when some weighty care or urgent calamity has possession of the mind. She will compose herself. She is unwilling to die, and the first conviction of approaching death raised great perturbation. I think she has but very lately thought death close at hand. She will compose herself to do that as well as she can, which must, at last, be done. May she not want the divine assistance! You, madam, will have a great loss; a greater than is common in the loss of a parent. Fill your mind with hope of her happiness, and turn your thoughts first to him who gives and takes away, in whose presence the living and dead are standing together. Then remember, that when this mournful duty is paid, others yet remain of equal obligation, and, we may hope, of less painful performance. Grief is a species of idleness, and the necessity of attention to the present preserves us, by the merciful disposition of providence, from being lacerated and devoured by sorrow for the past. You must think on your husband and your children, and do what this dear lady has done for you. Not to come to town while the great struggle continues is, undoubtedly, well resolved. But do not harass yourself into danger; you owe the care of your health to all that love you, at least to all whom it is your duty to love. You cannot give such a mother too much, if you do not give her what belongs to another. I am, &c.
April 27, 1773. DEAR MADAM,--Hope is more pleasing than fear, but not less fallacious; you know, when you do not try to deceive yourself, that the disease, which at last is to destroy, must be gradually growing worse, and that it is vain to wish for more than, that the descent to death may be slow and easy. In this wish I join with you, and hope it will be granted. Dear, dear lady, whenever she is lost she will be missed, and whenever she is remembered she will be lamented. Is it a good or an evil to me, that she now loves me? It is surely a good; for you will love me better, and we shall have a new principle of concord; and I shall be happier with honest sorrow, than with sullen indifference: and far happier still than with counterfeited sympathy. I am reasoning upon a principle very far from certain, a confidence of survivance. You or I, or both, may be called into the presence of the supreme judge before her. I have lived a life of which I do not like the review. Surely I shall, in time, live better. I sat down with an intention to write high compliments; but my thoughts have taken another course, and some other time must now serve to tell you with what other emotions, benevolence, and fidelity, I am, &c.
May 17, 1773. MADAM,--Never imagine that your letters are long; they are always too short for my curiosity. I do not know that I was ever content with a single perusal. Of dear Mrs. Salusbury I never expect much better news than you send me; _de pis en pis_ is the natural and certain course of her dreadful malady. I am content, when it leaves her ease enough for the exercise of her mind. Why should Mr. **** suppose, that what I took the liberty of suggesting, was concerted with you? He does not know how much I revolve his affairs, and how honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let the hint take some hold of his mind. Your declaration to Miss **** is more general than my opinions allow. I think an unlimited promise of acting by the opinion of another so wrong, that nothing, or hardly anything, can make it right. All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future which has not been given us. They are, I think, a crime, because they resign that life to chance which God has given us to be regulated by reason; and superinduce a kind of fatality, from which it is the great privilege of our nature to be free. Unlimited obedience is due only to the universal father of heaven and earth. My parents may be mad and foolish; may be wicked and malicious; may be erroneously religious, or absurdly scrupulous. I am not bound to compliance with mandates, either positive or negative, which either religion condemns, or reason rejects. There wanders about the world a wild notion, which extends over marriage more than over any other transaction. If Miss **** followed a trade, would it be said, that she was bound, in conscience, to give or refuse credit at her father's choice? And is not marriage a thing in which she is more interested, and has, therefore, more right of choice? When I may suffer for my own crimes, when I may be sued for my own debts, I may judge, by parity of reason, for my own happiness. The parent's moral right can arise only from his kindness, and his civil right only from his money. Conscience cannot dictate obedience to the wicked, or compliance with the foolish; and of interest mere prudence is the judge. If the daughter is bound without a promise, she promises nothing; and if she is not bound, she promises too much. What is meant by tying up money in trade I do not understand No money is so little tied, as that which is employed in trade. Mr. ****, perhaps, only means, that in consideration of money to be advanced, he will oblige his son to be a trader. This is reasonable enough. Upon ten thousand pounds, diligently occupied, they may live in great plenty and splendour, without the mischiefs of idleness. I can write a long letter, as well as my mistress; and shall be glad that my long letters may be as welcome as hers. My nights are grown again very uneasy and troublesome. I know not that the country will mend them; but I hope your company will mend my days. Though I cannot now expect much attention, and would not wish for more than can be spared from the poor dear lady, yet I shall see you and hear you every now and then; and to see and hear you, is always to hear wit, and to see virtue. I shall I hope, see you to-morrow, and a little on the two next days; and with that little I must, for the present, try to be contented. I am, &c.
August 12, 1773. DEAR MADAM,--We left London on Friday, the 6th, not very early, and travelled, without any memorable accident, through a country which I had seen before. In the evening I was not well, and was forced to stop at Stilton, one stage short of Stamford, where we intended to have lodged. On the 7th we passed through Stamford and Grantham, and dined at Newark, where I had only time to observe, that the market-place was uncommonly spacious and neat. In London, we should call it a square, though the sides were neither straight nor parallel. We came, at night, to Doncaster, and went to church in the morning, where Chambers found the monument of Robert of Doncaster, who says on his stone something like this:--What I gave, that I have; what I spent, that I had; what I left, that I lost.--So saith Robert of Doncaster, who reigned in the world sixty-seven years, and all that time lived not one. Here we were invited to dinner, and, therefore, made no great haste away. We reached York, however, that night; I was much disordered with old complaints. Next morning we saw the minster, an edifice of loftiness and elegance, equal to the highest hopes of architecture. I remember nothing, but the dome of St. Paul's, that can be compared with the middle walk. The chapter-house is a circular building, very stately, but, I think, excelled by the chapter-house of Lincoln. I then went to see the ruins of the abbey, which are almost vanished, and I remember nothing of them distinct. The next visit was to the gaol, which they call the castle; a fabrick built lately, such is terrestrial mutability, out of the materials of the ruined abbey. The under gaoler was very officious to show his fetters, in which there was no contrivance. The head gaoler came in, and seeing me look, I suppose, fatigued, offered me wine, and, when I went away, would not suffer his servant to take money. The gaol is accounted the best in the kingdom, and you find the gaoler deserving of his dignity. We dined at York, and went on to Northallerton, a place of which I know nothing, but that it afforded us a lodging on Monday night, and about two hundred and seventy years ago gave birth to Roger Ascham. Next morning we changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect. The church is built crosswise, with a fine spire, and might invite a traveller to survey it; but I, perhaps, wanted vigour, and thought I wanted time. The next stage brought us to Durham, a place of which Mr. Thrale bade me take particular notice. The bishop's palace has the appearance of an old feudal castle, built upon an eminence, and looking down upon the river, upon which was formerly thrown a drawbridge, as I suppose, to be raised at night, lest the Scots should pass it. The cathedral has a massiness and solidity, such as I have seen in no other place; it rather awes than pleases, as it strikes with a kind of gigantick dignity, and aspires to no other praise than that of rocky solidity and indeterminate duration. I had none of my friends resident, and, therefore, saw but little. The library is mean and scanty. At Durham, beside all expectation, I met an old friend: Miss Fordyce is married there to a physician. We met, I think, with honest kindness on both sides. I thought her much decayed, and having since heard that the banker had involved her husband in his extensive ruin, I cannot forbear to think, that I saw in her withered features more impression of sorrow than that of time-- "Qua terra patet, sera regnat Erinnys." He that wanders about the world sees new forms of human misery, and if he chances to meet an old friend, meets a face darkened with troubles. On Tuesday night we came hither; yesterday I took some care of myself, and to-day I am _quite polite_. I have been taking a view of all that could be shown me, and find that all very near to nothing. You have often heard me complain of finding myself disappointed by books of travels; I am afraid travel itself will end likewise in disappointment. One town, one country, is very like another: civilized nations have the same customs, and barbarous nations have the same nature: there are, indeed, minute discriminations both of places and manners, which, perhaps, are not wanting of curiosity, but which a traveller seldom stays long enough to investigate and compare. The dull utterly neglect them; the acute see a little, and supply the rest with fancy and conjecture. I shall set out again to-morrow; but I shall not, I am afraid, see Alnwick, for Dr. Percy is not there. I hope to lodge to-morrow night at Berwick, and the next at Edinburgh, where I shall direct Mr. Drummond, bookseller at Ossian's head, to take care of my letters. I hope the little dears are all well, and that my dear master and mistress may go somewhither; but, wherever you go, do not forget, madam, your most humble servant. I am pretty well. August 15. Thus far I had written at Newcastle. I forgot to send it. I am now at Edinburgh; and have been this day running about. I run pretty well.
Edinburgh, August 17, 1773. DEAR MADAM,--On the 13th, I left Newcastle, and, in the afternoon, came to Alnwick, where we were treated with great civility by the duke: I went through the apartments, walked on the wall, and climbed the towers. That night we lay at Belford, and, on the next night, came to Edinburgh. On Sunday (15th) I went to the English chapel. After dinner, Dr. Robertson came in, and promised to show me the place. On Monday I saw their publick buildings: the cathedral, which I told Robertson I wished to see, because it had once been a church; the courts of justice, the parliament-house, the advocates' library, the repository of records, the college, and its library, and the palace, particularly the old tower, where the king of Scotland seized David Rizzio in the queen's presence. Most of their buildings are very mean; and the whole town bears some resemblance to the old part of Birmingham. Boswell has very handsome and spacious rooms, level with the ground, on one side of the house, and, on the other, four stories high. At dinner, on Monday, were the dutchess of Douglas, an old lady, who talks broad Scotch with a paralytick voice, and is scarcely understood by her own countrymen; the lord chief baron, sir Adolphus Oughton, and many more. At supper there was such a conflux of company, that I could scarcely support the tumult. I have never been well in the whole journey, and am very easily disordered. This morning I saw, at breakfast, Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to, by a poor scholar, in Latin, Greek, and French. He was, originally, a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence. Tomorrow our journey begins; I know not when I shall write again. I am but poorly. I am, &c.
Bamff, August 25, 1773. Dear Madam,--It has so happened, that, though I am perpetually thinking on you, I could seldom find opportunity to write; I have, in fourteen days, sent only one letter; you must consider the fatigues of travel, and the difficulties encountered in a strange country. August 18th. I passed, with Boswell, the frith of Forth, and began our journey; in the passage we observed an island, which I persuaded my companions to survey. We found it a rock somewhat troublesome to climb, about a mile long, and half a mile broad; in the middle were the ruins of an old fort, which had, on one of the stones,--"Maria Re. 1564." It had been only a blockhouse, one story high. I measured two apartments, of which the walls were entire, and found them twenty-seven feet long, and twenty-three broad. The rock had some grass and many thistles; both cows and sheep were grazing. There was a spring of water. The name is Inchkeith. Look on your maps. This visit took about an hour. We pleased ourselves with being in a country all our own, and then went back to the boat, and landed at Kinghorn, a mean town; and, travelling through Kirkaldie, a very long town, meanly built, and Cowpar, which I could not see, because it was night, we came late to St. Andrew's, the most ancient of the Scotch universities, and once the see of the primate of Scotland. The inn was full; but lodgings were provided for us at the house of the professor of rhetorick, a man of elegant manners, who showed us, in the morning, the poor remains of a stately cathedral, demolished in Knox's reformation, and now only to be imagined, by tracing its foundation, and contemplating the little ruins that are left. Here was once a religious house. Two of the vaults or cellars of the sub-prior are even yet entire. In one of them lives an old woman, who claims an hereditary residence in it, boasting that her husband was the sixth tenant of this gloomy mansion, in a lineal descent, and claims, by her marriage with this lord of the cavern, an alliance with the Bruces. Mr. Boswell staid awhile to interrogate her, because he understood her language; she told him, that she and her cat lived together; that she had two sons somewhere, who might, perhaps, be dead; that, when there were quality in the town, notice was taken of her, and that now she was neglected, but did not trouble them. Her habitation contained all that she had; her turf, for fire, was laid in one place, and her balls of coal-dust in another, but her bed seemed to be clean. Boswell asked her, if she never heard any noises; but she could tell him of nothing supernatural, though she often wandered in the night among the graves and ruins; only she had, sometimes, notice, by dreams, of the death of her relations. We then viewed the remains of a castle, on the margin of the sea, in which the archbishops resided, and in which cardinal Beatoun was killed. The professors, who happened to be readout in the vacation, made a publick dinner, and treated us very kindly and respectfully. They showed us their colleges, in one of which there is a library that, for luminousness and elegance, may vie, at least, with the new edifice at Streatham. But learning seems not to prosper among them; one of their colleges has been lately alienated, and one of their churches lately deserted. An experiment was made of planting a shrubbery in the church, but it did not thrive. Why the place should thus fall to decay, I know not; for education, such as is here to be had, is sufficiently cheap. The term, or, as they call it, their session, lasts seven months in the year, which the students of the highest rank and greatest expense, may pass here for twenty pounds, in which are included board, lodging, books, and the continual instruction of three professors. 20th. We left St. Andrew's, well satisfied with our reception, and, crossing the frith of Tay, came to Dundee, a dirty, despicable town. We passed, afterwards, through Aberbrothick, famous once for an abbey, of which there are only a few fragments left; but those fragments testify that the fabrick was once of great extent, and of stupendous magnificence. Two of the towers are yet standing, though shattered; into one of them Boswell climbed, but found the stairs broken: the way into the other we did not see, and had not time to search; I believe it might be ascended, but the top, I think, is open. We lay at Montrose, a neat place, with a spacious area for the market, and an elegant town-house. 21st. We travelled towards Aberdeen, another university, and, in the way, dined at lord Monboddo's, the Scotch judge, who has lately written a strange book about the origin of language, in which he traces monkeys up to men, and says that, in some countries, the human species have tails like other beasts. He inquired for these long-tailed men of Banks, and was not well pleased, that they had not been found in all his peregrination. He talked nothing of this to me, and I hope we parted friends; for we agreed pretty well, only we disputed in adjusting the claims of merit between a shopkeeper of London, and a savage of the American wildernesses. Our opinions were, I think, maintained, on both sides, without full conviction: Monboddo declared boldly for the savage; and I, perhaps, for that reason, sided with the citizen. We came late to Aberdeen, where I found my dear mistress's letter, and learned that all our little people were happily recovered of the measles. Every part of your letter was pleasing. There are two cities of the name of Aberdeen: the old town, built about a mile inland, once the see of a bishop, which contains the king's college, and the remains of the cathedral; and the new town, which stands, for the sake of trade, upon a frith or arm of the sea, so that ships rest against the quay. The two cities have their separate magistrates; and the two colleges are, in effect, two universities, which confer degrees independently of each other. New Aberdeen is a large town, built almost wholly of that granite which is used for the new pavement in London, which, hard as it is, they square with very little difficulty. Here I first saw the women in plaids. The plaid makes, at once, a hood and cloak, without cutting or sewing, merely by the manner of drawing the opposite sides over the shoulders. The maids, at the inns, run over the house barefoot; and children, not dressed in rags, go without shoes or stockings. Shoes are, indeed, not yet in universal use; they came late into this country. One of the professors told us, as we were mentioning a fort, built by Cromwell, that the country owed much of its present industry to Cromwell's soldiers. They taught us, said he, to raise cabbage, and make shoes. How they lived without shoes may yet be seen; but, in the passage through villages, it seems to him, that surveys their gardens, that when they had not cabbage, they had nothing. Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrew's, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April. The academical buildings seem rather to advance than decline. They showed their libraries, which were not very splendid, but some manuscripts were so exquisitely penned, that I wished my dear mistress to have seen them. I had an unexpected pleasure, by finding an old acquaintance, now professor of physick, in the king's college: we were, on both sides, glad of the interview, having not seen, nor, perhaps, thought on one another, for many years; but we had no emulation, nor had either of us risen to the other's envy, and our old kindness was easily renewed. I hope we shall never try the effect of so long an absence, and that I shall always be, madam your, &c.
Inverness, August 28, 1773. DEAR MADAM,--August 23rd, I had the honour of attending the lord provost of Aberdeen, and was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise! there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed. I wore my patent of freedom, _pro more_, in my hat, from the new town to the old, about a mile. I then dined with my friend, the professor of physick, at his house, and saw the king's college. Boswell was very angry, that the Aberdeen professors would not talk. When I was at the English church, in Aberdeen, I happened to be espied by lady Di. Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to lord Errol's house, called Slane's castle We went thither on the next day, (24th of August,) and found a house, not old, except but one tower, built on the margin of the sea, upon a rock, scarce accessible from the sea; at one corner, a tower makes a perpendicular continuation of the lateral surface of the rock, so that it is impracticable to walk round; the house inclosed a square court, and on all sides within the court is a piazza, or gallery, two stories high. We came in, as we were invited to dinner, and, after dinner, offered to go; but lady Errol sent us word by Mr. Boyd, that if we went before lord Errol came home, we must never be forgiven, and ordered out the coach to show us two curiosities. We were first conducted, by Mr. Boyd, to Dunbuys, or the yellow rock. Dunbuys is a rock, consisting of two protuberances, each, perhaps, one hundred yards round, joined together by a narrow neck, and separated from the land by a very narrow channel or gully. These rocks are the haunts of seafowl, whose clang, though this is not their season, we heard at a distance. The eggs and the young are gathered here, in great numbers, at the time of breeding. There is a bird here, called a coot, which, though not much bigger than a duck, lays a larger egg than a goose. We went then to see the Buller, or Bouilloir, of Buchan: Buchan is the name of the district, and the Buller is a small creek, or gulf, into which the sea flows through an arch of the rock. We walked round it, and saw it black, at a great depth. It has its name from the violent ebullition of the water, when high winds or high tides drive it up the arch into the basin. Walking a little farther, I spied some boats, and told my companions that we would go into the Buller and examine it. There was no danger; all was calm; we went through the arch, and found ourselves in a narrow gulf, surrounded by craggy rocks, of height not stupendous, but, to a mediterranean visitor, uncommon. On each side was a cave, of which the fisherman knew not the extent, in which smugglers hide their goods, and sometimes parties of pleasure take a dinner. I am, &c. _ |
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