of them still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that Tour to virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Hebrid. Scotch; who certainly would never have formed those combinations which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners. They would find us not deficient, at least in point of hospitality, and they would be ashamed ever after to abuse us in the mass.

"So much for the Tour. I have now, for the first time in my life, passed a winter in the country; and never did three months roll on with more swiftness and satisfaction. I used not only to wonder at, but pity, those whose lot condemned them to winter any where but in either of the capitals. But every place has its charms to a cheerful mind. I am busy planting and taking measures for opening the summer campaign in farming; and I find I have an excellent resource, when revolutions in politicks perhaps, and revolutions of the sun for certain, will make it decent for me to retreat behind the ranks of the more forward in life.

“I am glad to hear the last was a very busy week with you. I see you as counsel in some causes which must have opened a charming field for your humorous vein. As it is more uncommon, so I verily believe it is more useful than the more serious exercise of reason; and, to a man who is to appear in publick, more eclat is to be gained, sometimes more money too, by a bon-mot, than a learned speech. It is the fund of natural humour which Lord North possesses, that makes him so much the favourite of the house, and so able, because so amiable, a leader of a party.

"I have now finished my Tour of Seven Pages. In what remains, I beg leave to offer my compliments, and those of ma très chere femme, to you and Mrs. Boswell. Pray unbend the busy brow, and frolick a little in a letter to, my dear Boswell, your affectionate friend, "GEORGE DEMPSTER'."

I shall also present the publick with a correspondence with the laird of Rasay, concerning a passage

Every reader will, I am sure, join with me in warm admiration of the truly patriotick writer of this letter. I know not which most to applaud,-that good sense and liberality of mind which could see and admit the defects of his native country, to which no man is a more zealous friend; or that candour which induced him to give just praise to the minister whom he honestly and strenuously opposed-BosWELL.

Tour to in the " Journey to the Western Islands," which Hebrid. shows Dr. Johnson in a very amiable light.

"TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

"Rasay, 10th April, 1775.

"DEAR SIR,—I take this occasion of returning you my most hearty thanks for the civilities shown to my daughter by you and Mrs. Boswell. Yet, though she has informed me that I am under this obligation, I should very probably have deferred troubling you with making my acknowledgments at present, if I had not seen Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Isles,' in which he has been pleased to make a very friendly mention of my family, for which I am surely obliged to him, as being more than an equivalent for the reception you and he met with. Yet there is one paragraph I should have been glad he had omitted, which I am sure was owing to misinformation; that is, that I had acknowledged Macleod to be my chief, though my ancestors disputed the pre-eminence for a long tract of time.

"I never had occasion to enter seriously on this argument with the present laird or his grandfather, nor could I have any temptation to such a renunciation from either of them. I acknowledge the benefit of being chief of a clan is in our days of very little significancy, and to trace out the progress of this honour to the founder of a family, of any standing, would perhaps be a matter of some difficulty.

"The true state of the present case is this: the M'Leod family consists of two different branches; the McLeods of Lewis, of which I am descended, and the M'Leods of Harris. And though the former have lost a very extensive estate by forfeiture in King James the Sixth's time, there are still several respectable families of it existing, who would justly blame me for such an unmeaning cession, when they all acknowledge me head of that family; which, though in fact it be but an ideal point of honour, is not hitherto so far disregarded in our country, but it would determine some of my friends to look on me as a much smaller man than either they or myself judge me at present to be. I will, therefore, ask it as a favour of you to acquaint the Doctor with the difficulty he has brought me to. In travelling among rival clans, such a silly tale as this might easily be whispered into the ear of a passing stranger; but as it has no foundation in fact, I hope the Doctor will be so good as to take his

Hebrid.

own way in undeceiving the publick-I principally mean my Tour to friends and connexions, who will be first angry at me, and next sorry to find such an instance of my littleness recorded in a book which has a very fair chance of being much read. I expect you will let me know what he will write you in return, and we here beg to make offer to you and Mrs. Boswell of our most respectful compliments.--I am, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant, "JOHN M'LEOD."

"TO THE LAIRD OF RASAY.

"London, 8th May, 1775.

"DEAR SIR,--The day before yesterday I had the honour to receive your letter, and I immediately communicated it to Dr. Johnson. He said he loved your spirit, and was exceedingly sorry that he had been the cause of the smallest uneasiness to you. There is not a more candid man in the world than he is, when properly addressed, as you will see from his letter to you, which I now inclose. He has allowed me to take a copy of it, and he says you may read it to your clan, or publish it, if you please. Be assured, sir, that I shall take care of what he has intrusted to me, which is to have an acknowledgment of his error inserted in the Edinburgh newspapers. You will, I dare say, be fully satisfied with Dr. Johnson's behaviour. He is desirous to know that you are; and therefore when you have read his acknowledgment in the papers, I beg you may write to me; and if you choose it, I am persuaded a letter from you to the Doctor also will be taken kind. I shall be at Edinburgh the week after next.

"Any civilities which my wife and I had in our power to show to your daughter, Miss M'Leod, were due to her own merit, and were well repaid by her agreeable company. But I am sure I should be a very unworthy man if I did not wish to show a grateful sense of the hospitable and genteel manner in which you were pleased to treat me. Be assured, my dear sir, that I shall never forget your goodness, and the happy hours which I spent in Rasay.

"You and Dr. M'Leod were both so obliging as to promise me an account in writing of all the particulars which each of you remember, concerning the transactions of 1745-6. Pray do not forget this, and be as minute and full as you can; put down every thing: I have a great curiosity to know as much as I can, authentically.

"I beg that you may present my best respects to Lady Rasay, my compliments to your young family, and to Dr. M.Leod;

Hebrid.

Tour to and my hearty good wishes to Malcolm, with whom I hope again to shake hands cordially. I have the honour to be, dear sir, your obliged and faithful humble servant,

"JAMES Boswell."

ADVERTISEMENT WRITTEN BY DR. JOHNSON,

And inserted by his desire in the Edinburgh newspapers (referred to in the foregoing letter1).

"The author of the Journey to the Western Islands,' having related that the M'Leods of Rasay acknowledge the chieftainship or superiority of the M'Leods of Sky, finds that he has been misinformed or mistaken. He means in a future edition to correct his errour, and wishes to be told of more, if more have been discovered."

Dr. Johnson's letter was as follows:

"TO THE LAIRD OF RASAY.

your

"London, 6th May, 1775. "DEAR SIR,-Mr. Boswell has this day shown me a letter, in which you complain of a passage in the Journey to the Hebrides. My meaning is mistaken. I did not intend to say that you had personally made any cession of the rights of house, or any acknowledgment of the superiority of M'Leod of Dunvegan. I only designed to express what I thought generally admitted-that the house of Rasay allowed the superiority of the house of Dunvegan. Even this I now find to be erroneous, and will therefore omit or retract it in the next edition.

"Though what I had said had been true, if it had been disagreeable to you, I should have wished it unsaid; for it is not my business to adjust precedence. As it is mistaken, I find myself disposed to correct, both by my respect for you, and my reverence for truth.

"As I know not when the book will be reprinted, I have desired Mr. Boswell to anticipate the correction in the Edinburgh papers. This is all that can be done.

"I hope I may now venture to desire that my compliments may be made, and my gratitude expressed, to Lady Rasay, Mr. Malcolm McLeod, Mr. Donald M'Queen, and all the gentlemen and all the ladies whom I saw in the island of Rasay; a place which I remember with too much pleasure and too much kindness, not to be sorry that my ignorance, or hasty persuasion, should, for a single moment, have violated its tranquillity.

The original MS. is now in my possession.-BoswELL.

Hebrid.

"I beg you all to forgive an undesigned and involuntary Tour to injury, and to consider me as, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON 1."

It would be improper for me to boast of my own labours; but I cannot refrain from publishing such praise as I received from such a man as Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, after the perusal of the original manuscript of my Journal.

“TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

"Edinburgh, 7th March, 1777.

"MY DEAR SIR,-I ought to have thanked you sooner for your very obliging letter, and for the singular confidence you are pleased to place in me, when you trust me with such a curious and valuable deposit as the papers you have sent me2. Be assured I have a due sense of this favour, and shall faithfully and carefully return them to you. You may rely that I shall neither copy any part, nor permit the papers to be seen.

"They contain a curious picture of society, and form a journal on the most instructive plan that can possibly be thought of; for I am not sure that an ordinary observer would become so well acquainted either with Dr. Johnson, or with the manners of the Hebrides, by a personal intercourse, as by a perusal of your Journal.

"I am very truly, dear sir, your most obedient and affectionate humble servant, “WILLIAM FORBES.”

When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns," I feel an impression at once awful and tender. -Requiescant in pace!

1 Rasay was highly gratified, and afterwards visited and dined with Dr. Johnson, at his house in London.-BOSWELL.

In justice both to Sir William Forbes and myself, it is proper to mention, that the papers which were submitted to his perusal contained only an account of our Tour from the time that Dr. Johnson and I set out from Edinburgh (p. 46), and consequently did not contain the eulogium on Sir William Forbes, (p. 16), which he never saw till this book appeared in print; nor did he even know, when he wrote the above letter, that this Journal was to be published. -BOSWELL.