The company were entertained and pleased to observe it.  Upon that subject, there was something congenial between the soul of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and that of an isle of Sky farmer’s wife.  It is curious to see people, how far so ever removed from each other in the general system of their lives, come close together on a particular point which is common to each.  We were merry with Corrichatachin, on Dr. Johnson’s whispering with his wife.  She, perceiving this, humourously cried, ‘I am in love with him.  What is it to live and not to love?’ Upon her saying something, which I did not hear, or cannot recollect, he seized her hand eagerly, and kissed it.

As we were going, the Scottish phrase of ‘honest man!’ which is an expression of kindness and regard, was again and again applied by the company to Dr. Johnson.  I was also treated with much civility; and I must take some merit from my assiduous attention to him, and from my contriving that he shall be easy wherever he goes, that he shall not be asked twice to eat or drink any thing (which always disgusts him), that he shall be provided with water at his meals, and many such little things, which, if not attended to, would fret him.  I also may be allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation:  I do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in examining a witness—­starting topics, and making him pursue them.  He appears to me like a great mill, into which a subject is thrown to be ground.  It requires, indeed, fertile minds to furnish materials for this mill.  I regret whenever I see it unemployed; but sometimes I feel myself quite barren, and have nothing to throw in.  I know not if this mill be a good figure; though Pope makes his mind a mill for turning verses[716].

We set out about four.  Young Corrichatachin went with us.  We had a fine evening, and arrived in good time at Ostig, the residence of Mr. Martin M’Pherson, minister of Slate.  It is a pretty good house, built by his father, upon a farm near the church.  We were received here with much kindness by Mr. and Mrs. M’Pherson, and his sister, Miss M’Pherson, who pleased Dr. Johnson much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the guittar.  He afterwards sent her a present of his Rasselas.  In his bed-chamber was a press stored with books, Greek, Latin, French, and English, most of which had belonged to the father of our host, the learned Dr. M’Pherson; who, though his Dissertations have been mentioned in a former page[717] as unsatisfactory, was a man of distinguished talents.  Dr. Johnson looked at a Latin paraphrase of the song of Moses, written by him, and published in the Scots Magazine for 1747, and said, ’It does him honour; he has a good deal of Latin, and good Latin.’  Dr. M’Pherson published also in the same magazine, June 1739, an original Latin ode, which he wrote from the isle of Barra, where he was minister for some years.  It is very poetical, and exhibits a striking proof how much all things depend upon comparison:  for Barra, it seems, appeared to him so much worse than Sky, his natale solum[718], that he languished for its ‘blessed mountains,’ and thought himself buried alive amongst barbarians where he was.  My readers will probably not be displeased to have a specimen of this ode:—­