We talked to-night of Luther’s allowing the Landgrave of Hesse two wives, and that it was with the consent of the wife to whom he was first married.  JOHNSON.  ’There was no harm in this, so far as she was only concerned, because volenti non fit injuria.  But it was an offence against the general order of society, and against the law of the Gospel, by which one man and one woman are to be united.  No man can have two wives, but by preventing somebody else from having one.’

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17.

After dinner yesterday, we had a conversation upon cunning.  M’Leod said that he was not afraid of cunning people; but would let them play their tricks about him like monkeys.  ‘But, (said I,) they’ll scratch;’ and Mr. M’Queen added, ’they’ll invent new tricks, as soon as you find out what they do.’  JOHNSON.  ’Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning.  It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive[608].’  This led us to consider whether it did not require great abilities to be very wicked.  JOHNSON.  ’It requires great abilities to have the power of being very wicked; but not to be very wicked.  A man who has the power, which great abilities procure him, may use it well or ill; and it requires more abilities to use it well, than to use it ill.  Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to every thing.  It is much easier to steal a hundred pounds, than to get it by labour, or any other way.  Consider only what act of wickedness requires great abilities to commit it, when once the person who is to do it has the power; for there is the distinction.  It requires great abilities to conquer an army, but none to massacre it after it is conquered.’

The weather this day was rather better than any that we had since we came to Dunvegan.  Mr. M’Queen had often mentioned a curious piece of antiquity near this, which he called a temple of the Goddess ANAITIS.  Having often talked of going to see it, he and I set out after breakfast, attended by his servant, a fellow quite like a savage.  I must observe here, that in Sky there seems to be much idleness; for men and boys follow you, as colts follow passengers upon a road.  The usual figure of a Sky-boy, is a lown with bare legs and feet, a dirty kilt, ragged coat and waistcoat, a bare head, and a stick in his hand, which, I suppose, is partly to help the lazy rogue to walk, partly to serve as a kind of a defensive weapon.  We walked what is called two miles, but is probably four, from the castle, till we came to the sacred place.  The country around is a black dreary moor on all sides, except to the sea-coast, towards which there is a view through a valley; and the farm of Bay shews some good land.  The place itself is green ground, being well drained by means of a deep glen on each side, in both of which