I have now completed my account of our Tour to the Hebrides.  I have brought Dr. Johnson down to Scotland, and seen him into the coach which in a few hours carried him back into England.  He said to me often, that the time he spent in this Tour was the pleasantest part of his life[1121], and asked me if I would lose the recollection of it for five hundred pounds.  I answered I would not; and he applauded my setting such a value on an accession of new images in my mind[1122].

Had it not been for me, I am persuaded Dr. Johnson never would have undertaken such a journey; and I must be allowed to assume some merit from having been the cause that our language has been enriched with such a book as that which he published on his return; a book which I never read but with the utmost admiration, as I had such opportunities of knowing from what very meagre materials it was composed.

But my praise may be supposed partial; and therefore I shall insert two testimonies, not liable to that objection, both written by gentlemen of Scotland, to whose opinions I am confident the highest respect will be paid, Lord Hailes[1123], and Mr. Dempster[1124].  ’TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

’SIR,

’I have received much pleasure and much instruction, from perusing The Journey to the Hebrides.

’I admire the elegance and variety of description, and the lively picture of men and manners.  I always approve of the moral, often of the political, reflections.  I love the benevolence of the authour.

’They who search for faults, may possibly find them in this, as well as in every other work of literature.

’For example, the friends of the old family say that the aera of planting is placed too late, at the Union of the two kingdoms[1125].  I am known to be no friend of the old family; yet I would place the aera of planting at the Restoration; after the murder of Charles I. had been expiated in the anarchy which succeeded it.

’Before the Restoration, few trees were planted, unless by the monastick drones:  their successors, (and worthy patriots they were,) the barons, first cut down the trees, and then sold the estates.  The gentleman at St. Andrews, who said that there were but two trees in Fife[1126], ought to have added, that the elms of Balmerino[1127] were sold within these twenty years, to make pumps for the fire-engines.

’In J. Major de Gestis Scotorum, L. i.  C. 2. last edition, there is a singular passage:—­

’"Davidi Cranstoneo conterraneo, dum de prima theologiae licentia foret, duo ei consocii et familiares, et mei cum eo in artibus auditores, scilicet Jacobus Almain Senonensis, et Petrus Bruxcellensis, Praedicatoris ordinis, in Sorbonae curia die Sorbonico commilitonibus suis publice objecerunt, quod pane avenaceo plebeii Scoti, sicut a quodam religioso intellexerant, vescebantur, ut virum, quem cholericum noverant, honestis salibus tentarent, qui hoc inficiari tanquam patriae dedecus nisus est.”