bag, without filling it[614];” for that is the phrase he uses.  Why does he not tell how to fill it?’ JOHNSON.  ’Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.  He tells what he observes, and as much as he chooses.  If he tells what is not true, you may find fault with him; but, though he tells that the land is not well cultivated, he is not obliged to tell how it may be well cultivated.  If I tell that many of the Highlanders go bare-footed, I am not obliged to tell how they may get shoes.  Pennant tells a fact.  He need go no farther, except he pleases.  He exhausts nothing; and no subject whatever has yet been exhausted.  But Pennant has surely told a great deal.  Here is a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is not seven.’  Notwithstanding this eloquent Oratio pro Pennantio, which they who have read this gentleman’s Tours, and recollect the Savage and the Shopkeeper at Monboddo[615], will probably impute to the spirit of contradiction, I still think that he had better have given more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number of imperfect accounts.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18.

Before breakfast, Dr. Johnson came up to my room to forbid me to mention that this was his birthday; but I told him I had done it already; at which he was displeased[616]; I suppose from wishing to have nothing particular done on his account.  Lady M’Leod and I got into a warm dispute.  She wanted to build a house upon a farm which she has taken, about five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other ornaments there; all of which I approved of; but insisted that the seat of the family should always be upon the rock of Dunvegan.  JOHNSON.  ’Ay, in time we’ll build all round this rock.  You may make a very good house at the farm; but it must not be such as to tempt the Laird of M’Leod to go thither to reside.  Most of the great families in England have a secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house:  let the new house be of that kind.’  The lady insisted that the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made; that it must always be a rude place; that it was a Herculean labour to make a dinner here.  I was vexed to find the alloy of modern refinement in a lady who had so much old family spirit.  ’Madam, (said I,) if once you quit this rock, there is no knowing where you may settle.  You move five miles first;—­then to St. Andrews, as the late Laird did;—­then to Edinburgh;—­and so on till you end at Hampstead, or in France.  No, no; keep to the rock:  it is the very jewel of the estate.  It looks as if it had been let down from heaven by the four corners, to be the residence of a Chief.  Have all the comforts and conveniences of life upon it, but never leave Rorie More’s cascade.’  ’But, (said she,) is it not enough if we keep it?  Must we never have more convenience than Rorie