a painful feeling excited by the contemplation of some distress, the like of which we know may befall ourselves.' Children and savages have lively fancy, but little imagination: men are hard, generally, in proportion to their want of this last quality; and Plato does not hesitate to give as the measure of genius, the extent of sympathy. At the same dinner, by the by, where this question of pity was started, Dr. Johnson is introduced as thus handling a writer of deserved eminence' : 2 Why, Sir, he is a man of good parts, but, being originally poor, he has got a love of mean company and low jocularity; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, and to talk is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if you laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You may laugh in as many ways as you talk; and surely every way of talking that is practised cannot be esteemed.'-vol, i., p. 462. Mr. Croker's note is 'It is not easy to say who was here meant. Murphy, who was born poor, was distinguished for elegance of manners and conversation; and Fielding, who could not have been spoken of as alive in 1763, was born to better prospects, though he kept low company; and had it been Goldsmith, Boswell would probably have had no scruple in naming him.' Will he allow us to suggest the name of Smollett? The conversation occurs July 20, 1763: Dr. Smollett had left London' for Italy, in bad health, the month before, and might naturally be talked of. No one who recollects his own description of his Sunday dinners, in Humphry Clinker, the race for the pair of new boots between the fat bookseller and his poor translator, &c. &c., will dispute that the Novelist's tastes as to social diversion would appear low to the Rambler; and Boswell, being (as the Hebridean Tour shows) a personal friend of the Smollett family, would have been likely to suppress the eminent writer's' name, even if he had not been an eminent Scotchman. Since we are at such small matters,-Mr. Croker sometimes ( goes on refining.' When Johnson and Boswell, e. g. visit Calder, or (according to the pronunciation) Cawdor Castle in Invernesshire, the Editor discovers in Shakspeare's adherence to the latter spelling, which he seems to consider peculiar to Shakspeare, a strong, though minute instance of the general knowledge' of the author of Macbeth. Can Mr. Croker have forgotten that Shakspeare, in that first of tragedies, versifies numberless speeches, and two or three whole scenes, almost literatim, from Hollinshed? If he turns to the old chronicler, he will find him uniformly writing Cawdor. But enough of these notelings upon Here is something better: notes. 'JOHNSON. "JOHNSON." Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands." BoswELL." To be sure there is a great difference between the offence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife." JOHNSON-" The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards upon his wife."-vol. iv., p. 280. Mr. Croker's note on this passage is a capital compression of all that has been best said on the subject. This seems too narrow an illustration of a "boundless difference." The introduction of a bastard into a family, though a great injustice and a great crime, is only one consequence (and that an occasional and accidental one) of a greater crime and a more afflicting injustice. The precaution of Julia, alluded to ante, vol. iii., p. 390, did not render her innocent. In a moral and in a religious view, the guilt is no doubt equal in man or woman; but have not both Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell overlooked a social view of this subject? which is perhaps the true reason of the greater indulgence which is generally afforded to the infidelity of the man-I mean the effect on the personal character of the different sexes. The crime does not seem to alter or debase the qualities of the man, in any essential degree; but when the superior purity and delicacy of the woman is once contaminated, it is destroyed-facilis decensus Averni -she generally falls into utter degradation, and thence, probably, it is that society makes a distinction conformable to its own interests— it connives at the offence of men, because men are not much deteriorated as members of general society by the offence; and it is severe against the offence of women, because women, as members of society, are utterly degraded by it. This view of the subject will be illustrated by a converse proposition-for instance: The world thinks not the worse, nay rather the better, of a woman for wanting courage; but such a defect in a man is wholly unpardonable, because, as Johnson wisely and wittily said, "he who has not the virtue of courage has no security for any other virtue." Society, therefore, requires chastity from women, as it does courage from men. The Editor, in suggesting this merely worldly consideration, hopes not to be misunderstood as offering any defence of a breach, on the part of a man, of divine and human laws; he by no means goes so far as Dr. Johnson does in the text, but he has thought it right to suggest a difference on a most important subject, which had been overlooked by that great moralist, or is, at least, not stated by Mr. Boswell.' One excellent point of Mr. Croker's editorship is the embodying of Boswell's Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides in the Life of Johnson: we only wonder how the two pieces, so obviously parts of the same design, and executed so entirely in the same style, should have been kept distinct so many years after all petty difficulties arising from questions of copyright had ceased. Assuredly they will never again be separated; and as surely, the long series of notes, furnished to Mr. Croker by Sir Walter Scott, on the Hebridean part, containing, as they do, the cream of that great great writer's own observations during his tour to the Western Isles, and so much curious traditional matter, that he found lingering in the wilderness, concerning the sayings and doings of the Sassenagh More' (big Englishman), and his inimitable Cicerone, will never be divorced from the text which they so admirably illustrate, and indeed, invest with a new interest throughout. To us the expedition of 1775 appears by far the most entertaining episode of the doctor's life; and everything about it seems in harmony with the genial moment, so beautifully described, in which he first conceived the notion of his own account of his wanderings. 'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head, but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either side, were high hills, which, by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour well, I know not; for here I first conceived the thought of this narration.' We shall string together a few of Sir Walter Scott's contributions to this part of the undertaking; and begin with his note on that page of Boswell where Mr. Nairne' is mentioned as accompanying Johnson from Edinburgh to Fife. Mr. William Nairne, afterwards Sir William, and a judge of the Court of Session, by the title, made classical by Shakspeare, of Lord Dunsinnan. He was a man of scrupulous integrity. When sheriff depute of Perthshire, he found, upon reflection, that he had decided a poor man's case erroneously; and as the only remedy, supplied the litigant privately with money to carry the suit to the supreme court, where his judgment was reversed.' Monday, 6th Sept.-Dr. Johnson being fatigued with his journey, retired early to his chamber, where he composed the following Ode, addressed to Mrs. Thrale : • Permeo terras, ubi nuda rupes Torva ubi rident steriles coloni Rura labores, &c.' Note. 'About fourteen years since, I landed in Sky, with a party of friends, and had the curiosity to ask what was the first idea on every one's mind at landing. All answered separately that it was this Ode.' Saturday, 18th Sept.-The Lady Macleod, complaining of the inconveniences of Dunvegan castle, and wishing that the family residence should be removed to the valley below, says to Boswell, It is very well for you, who have a fine place, and everything easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You would not live upon it yourself." BOSWELL--" Yes, madam, I would live upon it, were I Laird of Macleod, and should be unhappy if I were not upon it." JOHNSON (with a strong voice and most determined manner)—" Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit; he would make his bed in the dungeon." On Boswell's observing that it would be easy to improve the accommodation of the old chateau, so as to render it tolerably comfortable, Sir Walter adds, Something has indeed been done, partly in the way of accommodation and ornament, partly in improvements yet more estimable, under the direction of the present beneficent Lady of Macleod. She has completely acquired the language of her husband's clan, in order to qualify herself to be their effectual benefactress. She has erected schools, which she superintends herself, to introduce among them the benefits, knowledge, and comforts of more civilised society; and a young and beautiful English woman has done more for the enlarged happiness of this primitive people than had been achieved for ages before.' At the same place they are shown a Latin inscription by Macleod's parish minister, in which the chief is styled, Gentis suæ philarchus;' on this Mr. Croker says: The minister seems to have been no contemptible Latinist. Is not Philarchus a very happy term to express the paternal and kindly authority of the head of a clan?' The editor does not seem to be aware, that Phylarchus (Duxapxos), literally chief of a tribe, is the established phraseology of Buchanan and all who ever wrote in Latin about these Celtic reguli. The minister's mis-spelling has misled him. We cannot leave Dunvegan without adverting to a most interesting fragment of autobiography by Johnson's Macleod, furnished to Mr. Croker by his son, the present chief, and which, besides throwing great light on Dr. Johnson's Hebridean proceedings, deserves to be attentively considered in a still more serious point of view. This phylarch of the Hebrid Isles, Placed far amid the melancholy main,' thus touchingly records his own behaviour-how unlike that of most of his brethren-at an epoch which will ever be miserably memorable in the history of those remote regions. In the year 1771, a strange passion for emigrating to America seized many of the middling and poorer sort of Highlanders. The change of manners in their chieftains, since 1745, produced effects which were evidently the proximate cause of this unnatural dereliction of their own, and appetite for a foreign, country. The laws which deprived the Highlanders of their arms and garb would certainly have destroyed the feudal military powers of the chieftains; but the fond attachment of the people to their patriarchs would have yielded to no laws. They were themselves the destroyers of that pleasing pleasing influence. Sucked into the vortex of the nation, and allured to the capitals, they degenerated from patriarchs and chieftains to landlords; and they became as anxious for increase of rent as the new-made lairds—the novi homines-the mercantile purchasers of the Lowlands. Many tenants, whose fathers, for generations, had enjoyed their little spots, were removed for higher bidders. Those who agreed, at any price, for their ancient lares, were forced to pay an increased rent, without being taught any new method to increase their produce. In the Hebrides, especially, this change was not gradual, but sudden,-and sudden and baleful were its effects. The people, freed by the laws from the power of the chieftains, and loosened by the chieftains themselves from the bonds of affection, turned their eyes and their hearts to new scenes. America seemed to open its arms to receive every discontented Briton. To those possessed of very small sums of money, it offered large possessions of uncultivated but excellent land, in a preferable climate ;to the poor, it held out high wages for labour;-to all, it promised property and independence. Many artful emissaries, who had an interest in the transportation or settlement of emigrants, industriously displayed these temptations; and the desire of leaving their country, for the new land of promise, became furious and epidemic. Like all other popular furies, it infected not only those who had reason to complain of their situation or injuries, but those who were most favoured and most comfortably settled. In the beginning of 1772, my grandfather, who had always been a most beneficent and beloved chieftain, but whose necessities had lately induced him to raise his rents, became much alarmed by this new spirit which had reached his clan. Aged and infirm, he was unable to apply the remedy in person;―he devolved the task on me, and gave me for an assistant our nearest male relation, Colonel Macleod, of Talisker. The duty imposed on us was difficult: the estate was loaded with debt, incumbered with a numerous issue from himself and my father, and charged with some jointures. His tenants had lost, in that severe winter, above a third of their cattle, which constituted their substance; their spirits were soured by their losses, and the late augmentations of rent; and their ideas of America were inflamed by the strongest representations, and the example of their neighbouring clans. My friend and I were empowered to grant such deductions in the rents as might seem necessary and reasonable; but we found it terrible to decide between the justice to creditors, the necessities of an ancient family which we ourselves represented, and the claims and distresses of an impoverished tenantry. To God I owe, and I trust will ever pay, the most fervent thanks that this terrible task enabled us to lay the foundation of circumstances (though then unlooked for) that I hope will prove the means not only of the rescue, but of the aggrandisement of our family. I was young, and had the warmth of the liberal passions natural to that age; I called the people of the different districts of our estate together; I laid before them the situation of our family— |