[895] Page 103. BOSWELL.
[896] From Skye he wrote:—'The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated at every house as if we came to confer a benefit.' Piozzi Letters, i. 155.
[897] See ante, i. 443, note 2.
[898] I observed with much regret, while the first edition of this work was passing through the press (Aug. 1790), that this ingenious gentleman was dead. BOSWELL.
[899] See ante, p. 242.
[900] See ante, i. 187.
[901] See ante, ii. 121, 296, and post, under March 30, 1783.
[902] Johnson (Works, ix. 158) says that 'the mediocrity of knowledge' obtained in the Scotch universities, 'countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way, to employment, riches, and distinction.'
[903] Macpherson had great influence with the newspapers. Horace Walpole wrote in February, 1776:—'Macpherson, the Ossianite, had a pension of £600 a year from the Court, to supervise the newspapers.' In Dec. 1781, Walpole mentions the difficulty of getting 'a vindicatory paragraph' inserted in the papers, 'This was one of the great grievances of the time. Macpherson had a pension of £800 a year from Court for inspecting newspapers, and inserted what lies he pleased, and prevented whatever he disapproved of being printed.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 17, 483.
[904] This book was published in 1779 under the title of 'Remarks on Dr. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, by the Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M., Minister of Lismore, Argyleshire.' In 1817 it was reprinted at Glasgow together with Johnson's Journey, in one volume. The Remarks are a few pages shorter than the Journey. By 'another Scotchman,' Boswell certainly meant Macpherson.