[899] 'Sir Allan went to the headman of the island, whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds. He was, perhaps, proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our entertainment; however he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious require.' Johnson's Works, ix. 146.
[900] An Account of the Isle of Man. With a voyage to I-Columb-Kill. By W. Sacheverell, Esq., late Governour of Man. 1702.
[901] 'He that surveys it [the church-yard] attended by an insular antiquary may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to soothe his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions his delight is at an end.' Johnson's Works, ix. 148.
[902] On quitting the island Johnson wrote: 'We now left those illustrious ruins, by which Mr. Boswell was much affected, nor would I willingly be thought to have looked upon them without some emotion.' Ib. p. 150.
[903] Psalm xc. 4.
[904] Boswell wrote on Nov. 9, 1767:—'I am always for fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character which I must support.' Letters of Boswell, p. 122. Five weeks later he wrote:—'I have been as wild as ever;' and then comes a passage which the Editor has thought it needful to suppress. Ib.p.128.
[905] Boswell here speaks as an Englishman. He should have written 'a M'Ginnis.' See ante, p. 135, note 3.
[906] 'The fruitfulness of Iona is now its whole prosperity. The inhabitants are remarkably gross, and remarkably neglected; I know not if they are visited by any minister. The island, which was once the metropolis of learning and piety, has now no school for education, nor temple for worship, only two inhabitants that can speak English, and not one that can write or read.' Johnson's Works, ix. 149. Scott, who visited it in 1810, writes:—'There are many monuments of singular curiosity, forming a strange contrast to the squalid and dejected poverty of the present inhabitants.' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, iii. 285. In 1814, on a second visit, he writes:—'Iona, the last time I saw it, seemed to me to contain the most wretched people I had anywhere seen. But either they have got better since I was here, or my eyes, familiarized with the wretchedness of Zetland and the Harris, are less shocked with that of Iona.' He found a schoolmaster there. Ib. iv. 324.
[907] Johnson's Jacobite friend, Dr. King (ante, i. 279), says of Pulteney, on his being made Earl of Bath:—'He deserted the cause of his country; he betrayed his friends and adherents; he ruined his character, and from a most glorious eminence sunk down to a degree of contempt. The first time Sir Robert (who was now Earl of Orford) met him in the House of Lords, he threw out this reproach:—"My Lord Bath, you and I are now two as insignificant men as any in England." In which he spoke the truth of my Lord Bath, but not of himself. For my Lord Orford was consulted by the ministers to the last day of his life.' King's Anec. p. 43.
[908] See ante, i. 431, and iii. 326.