'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has laid it down as a standing maxim, that he who believes not the oath of another, knows himself to be perjured.—Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[30].' This cannot always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.—The Scot must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth[31].' Apply the Doctor's maxims to his own conduct, and then judge of his honesty. He adds a little after: 'The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat[32].' He should not have spoke of ingratitude. The picture grows quite shocking.
'How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess. They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables; and, when they had not kail, they probably had NOTHING[33].' As the word kail is not to be found in his Dictionary, an English reader will be at a loss to find out what he means. His conjecture is ridiculous; and here a new contradiction must be swallowed by the Doctor's believers; for, if OATS be 'a grain, which, in England, is generally given to horses, but, in Scotland, supports the people[34],' in that case, it is easy to guess how they lived without kail. Any thing else had surely been better than to fill up his heavy folios with such peevish nonsense.
In his life of Butler, the Doctor has confined his remarks to Hudibras, though the rest of that author's works, both in prose and verse, merit equal attention. What are we to think of this invidious and culpable omission? Hudibras itself would, perhaps, have been omitted, if the book had not tended to ridicule dissenters; for no man in England seems to hate that sect so heartily. In Watt's life, he takes care to tell us, that the author was to be praised in every thing but his non-conformity; and, in his ever memorable Tour, the Rambler says, 'I found several (Highland Ministers), with whom I could not converse, without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been presbyterians[35].' Here a critic has very properly interrogated the Doctor, what he would have said or thought, if the Highland ministers had lamented that he was not a presbyterian? This man has no tincture of the liberal and humane manners of the present age; and yet, with his peculiar consistency, he laughs at the dissenter who refused to eat a Christmas pye[36]. This quondam believer in the Cocklane ghost says, 'though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with superstition[37];' yet, with all the Doctor's 'contempt of old women and their tales[38],' he would, if a Roman consul, have disbanded his army for the scratching of a rat[39].
'We found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of horn[40].' This important fact had been hinted in a former page; and such is the Doctor's politeness!
Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm.
Pope.
'They do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese[41].' The happiness of this remark will be fully felt by those acquainted with the peculiar purity of Pomposo's person.
'M'Leod left them lying dead by families as they stood[42].' This is profound; for no man can stand and lie at the same time. The line ought to be read thus: 'M'Leod left them lying dead by families as they HAD stood.'
Of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Doctor says: 'If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules, are so little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned: He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away: He cures diseases that were never felt.
'For this reason[43], the joint production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from mankind. It has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier by remembering it.
'The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general resemblance to Don Quixote, there will be found in it particular imitations of the history of Mr Ouffle.