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1775.

After my return to Scotland, I wrote three letters to him, from which I Ætat. 66. extract the following passages :

لبا

"I have feen Lord Hailes since I came down. He thinks it wonderful that you are pleased to take so much pains in revising his 'Annals.' I told him that you faid you were well rewarded by the entertainment which you had in reading them."

" There has been a numerous flight of Hebrideans in Edinburgh this summer, whom I have been happy to entertain at my house. Mr. Donald Macqueen and Lord Monboddo fupped with me one evening. They joined in controverting your proposition, that the Gaelick of the Highlands and Isles of Scotland was not written till of late."

" My mind has been somewhat dark this summer. I have need of your warming and vivifying rays; and I hope I shall have them frequently. I am going to pass some time with my father at Auchinleck."

"DEAR SIR,

TO JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.

"I AM now returned from the annual ramble into the middle counties. Having seen nothing that I had not seen before, I have nothing to relate. Time has left that part of the island few antiquities; and commerce has left the people no fingularities. I was glad to go abroad, and, perhaps, glad to come home; which is, in other words, I was, I am afraid, weary of being at home, and weary of being abroad. Is not this the state of life? But, if we confefs this weariness, let us not lament it; for all the wife and all the good say, that we may cure it.

" For the black fumes which rise in your mind, I can prescribe nothing but that you disperse them by honest business or innocent pleasure, and by reading sometimes easy and sometimes serious. Change of place is useful; and I hope that your refidence at Auchinleck will have many good effects.

"That I should have given pain to Rafay, I am fincerely forry; and am therefore very much pleased that he is no longer uneasy. He still thinks that I have represented him as personally giving up the Chieftainship. I meant only that it was no longe rcontested between the two houses, and supposed it

7 A very learned minifter in the Isle of Sky, whom both Dr. Johnson and I have mentioned with regard.

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fettled

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fettled, perhaps, by the cession of some remote generation, in the house of 1775. Dunvegan. I am forry the advertisement was not continued for three or four Ætat. 66. times in the papers.

"That Lord Monboddo and Mr. Macqueen should controvert a position contrary to the imaginary interest of literary or national prejudice, might be easily imagined; but of a standing fact there ought to be no controverfy: If there are men with tails, catch an homo caudatus ; if there was writing of old in the Highlands or Hebrides, in the Erse language, produce the manuscripts. Where men write, they will write to one another, and fome of their letters, in families studious of their ancestry, will be kept. In Wales there are many manufcripts.

" I have now three parcels of Lord Hailes's history, which I purpose to return all the next week: that his respect for my little observations should keep his work in suspense, makes one of the evils of my journey. It is in our language, I think, a new mode of history, which tells all that is wanted, and, I suppose, all that is known, without laboured splendour of language, or affected fubtilty of conjecture. The exactness of his dates raises my wonder. He seems to have the closeness of Henault without his constraint.

" Mrs. Thrale was so entertained with your 'Journal',' that she almost read herself blind. She has a great regard for you.

"Of Mrs. Bofwell, though she knows in her heart that she does not love me, I am always glad to hear any good, and hope that she and the little dear ladies will have neither sickness nor any other affliction. But she knows that she does not care what becomes of me, and for that she may be sure that I think her very much to blame.

" Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head to think that I do not love you; you may fettle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety. I hold you as Hamlet has it, ' in my heart of heart, and, therefore, it is little to say, that I am, Sir,

" London, August, 27, 1775.

"Your affectionate humble fervant,

SAM. JOHNSON."

* My " Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," which that lady read in the original manufcript."

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" IF in these papers, there is little alteration attempted, do not fuppofe me negligent. I have read them perhaps more closely than the reft; but I find nothing worthy of an objection.

"Write to me foon, and write often, and tell me all your honest heart.

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" I Now write to you, lest in some of your freaks and humours you should fancy yourself neglected. Such fancies I must entreat you never to admit, at least never to indulge, for my regard for you is so radicated and fixed, that it is become part of my mind, and cannot be effaced but by fome cause uncommonly violent; therefore, whether I write or not, set your thoughts at rest. I now write to tell you that I shall not very foon write again, for I am to set out to-morrow on another journey.

"Your friends are all well at Streatham, and in Leicester-fields. Make my compliments to Mrs. Bofwell, if the is in good humour with me. "I am, Sir, &c.

" September 14, 1775

SAM. JOHNSON."

What he mentions in such light terms as, "I am to set out to-morrow on another journey," I foon afterwards discovered was no less than a tour to France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. This was the only time in his life that he went upon the Continent.

To Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

Edinburgh, Oct. 24, 1775.

"MY DEAR SIR,

" IF I had not been informed that you were at Paris, you should have had a letter from me by the earliest opportunity, announcing the birth

* Another parcel of Lord Hailes's "Annals of Scotland."

of 1775

of my Son, on the 9th instant; I have named him Alexander, after my father. I now write, as I suppose your fellow traveller, Mr. Thrale, will return to Atat. 66. London this week to attend his duty in parliament, and that you will not stay behind him.

' I send another parcel of Lord Hailes's "Annals." I have undertaken to folicit you for a favour to him, which he thus requests in a letter to me: " I intend foon to give you the Life of Robert Bruce,' which you will be pleased to tranfmit to Dr. Johnson. I wish that you could assist me in a fancy which I have taken, of getting Dr. Johnson to draw a character of Robert Bruce, from the account that I give of that prince. If he finds materials for it in my work, it will be a proof that I have been fortunate in selecting the most striking incidents.'

" I suppose by The Life of Robert Bruce,' his Lordship means that part of his 'Annals' which relates the history of that prince, and not a separate work.

" Shall we have " A Journey to Paris" from you in the winter? You will, I hope, at any rate be kind enough to give me fome account of your French travels very foon, for I am very impatient. What a different scene have you viewed this autumn, from that which you viewed in autumn 1773! I ever am, my dear Sir,

Your much obliged, and affectionate humble servant,
"JAMES BOSWELL."

"DEAR SIR,

Gk

TO JAMES BOSWELL, Efq.

"I AM glad that the young Laird is born, and an end, as I hope, put to the only difference that you can ever have with Mrs. Bofwell. I know that she does not love me, but I intend to perfist in wishing her well till I get the better of her.

" Paris is, indeed, a place very different from the Hebrides, but it is to a hasty traveller not so fertile of novelty, nor affords so many opportunities of remark. I cannot pretend to tell the publick any thing of a place better known to many of my readers than to myself. We can talk of it when we

meet.

" I shall go next week to Streatham, from whence I purpose to fend a parcel of the History' every post. Concerning the character of Bruce, I

* This alludes to my old feudal principle of preferring male to female fucceffion.
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can

!

500

1775.

THE LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.

can only say, that I do not fee any great reason for writing it, but I shall not Etat. 66. easily deny what Lord Hailes and you concur in defiring.

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" I have been remarkably healthy all the journey, and hope you and your family have known only that trouble and danger which has so happily terminated. Among all the congratulations that you may receive, I hope you believe none more warm or fincere, than those of, dear Sir,

" November, 16, 1775.

" Your most affectionate,

SAM. JOHNSON."

To Mrs. LucY PORTER, in Lichfield...

"DEAR MADAM,

"THIS week. I came home from Paris. I have brought you a little box, which I thought pretty; but I know not whether it is properly a fnuff-box, or a box for fome other use. I will send it, when I can find an opportunity. I have been through the whole journey remarkably well. My fellow-travellers were the fame whom you saw at Lichfield, only we took Baretti with us. Paris is not fo fine a place as you would expect. The palaces and churches, however, are very splendid and magnificent; and what would please you, there are many very fine pictures; but I do not think their way of life commodious or pleasant..

"Let me know how your health has been all this while.. I hope the fine summer has given you strength fufficient to encounter the winter.

" Make my compliments to all my friends; and, if your fingers will let you, write to me, or let your maid write, if it be troublesome to you. I am, dear Madam,

"Nov. 16, 1775

"DEAR MADAM,

Your most affectionate humble servant,

To the same.

SAM. JOHNSON."

"SOME weeks ago I wrote to you, to tell you that I was just come home from a ramble, and hoped that I should have heard from you. I am afraid winter has laid hold on your fingers, and hinders you from writing. However, let fomebody write, if you cannot, and tell me how you do, and a.

+ There can be no doubt that many years previous to 1775, he corresponded with this lady, who was his step-daughter, but none of his earlier letters to her have been preferved.

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