emigration.  Dr. Johnson said, “It grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear to such disadvantage.  This gentleman has talents, nay some learning; but he is totally unfit for this situation.  Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen.  A strong-minded man, like his brother Sir James, may be improved by an English education; but in general they will be tamed into insignificance.”  ’I meditated an escape from this house the very next day; but Dr. Johnson resolved that we should weather it out till Monday.’  Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—­’We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast.  A boat was procured, and we launched into one of the straits of the Atlantick Ocean.  We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where ——­ ——­ resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly.  If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified...  Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 137.  A little later he wrote:—­’I have done thinking of ——­ whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony, and given occasion to so many stories, that ——­ has some thoughts of collecting them, and making a novel of his life.’ Ib. p. 198.  The last of Rowlandson’s Caricatures of Boswell’s Journal is entitled Revising for the Second Edition.  Macdonald is represented as seizing Boswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to the Journal that lies open at pages 168, 169.  On the ground lie pages 165, 167, torn out.  Boswell, in an agony of fear, is begging for mercy.

[451]

     ’Here, in Badenoch, here in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in
      Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,
      Here I see him and here:  I see him; anon I lose him.’

Clough’s Bothie, p. 125

[452] See his Latin verses addressed to Dr. Johnson, in this APPENDIX.  BOSWELL.

[453] See ante, ii. 157.

[454] See ante, i. 449.

[455] See ante, ii. 99.

[456] See ante, iii 198, note 1.

[457] ’Such is the laxity of Highland conversation, that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation knows less as he hears more.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 47.  ’They are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false.  Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the result of his investigations was, that the answer to the second question was commonly such as nullified the answer to the first.’ Ib., p. 114.