’Pray introduce our countryman, Mr. Licentiate David Cranston, to the acquaintance of Mr. Johnson.

’The syllogism seems to have been this: 

     ’They who feed on oatmeal are barbarians;
      But the Scots feed on oatmeal: 
      Ergo—­

The licentiate denied the minor,

     I am, Sir,
     Your most obedient servant,
    ‘DAV.  DALRYMPLE.’

‘Newhailes, 6th Feb. 1775.’

     To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., EDINBURGH. 
     Dunnichen, 16th February, 1775.

’MY DEAR BOSWELL,

’I cannot omit a moment to return you my best thanks for the entertainment you have furnished me, my family, and guests, by the perusal of Dr. Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands; and now for my sentiments of it.  I was well entertained.  His descriptions are accurate and vivid.  He carried me on the Tour along with him.  I am pleased with the justice he has done to your humour and vivacity.  “The noise of the wind being all its own,” is a bon-mot, that it would have been a pity to have omitted, and a robbery not to have ascribed to its author[1128].

’There is nothing in the book, from beginning to end, that a Scotchman need to take amiss[1129].  What he says of the country is true, and his observations on the people are what must naturally occur to a sensible, observing, and reflecting inhabitant of a convenient Metropolis, where a man on thirty pounds a year may be better accommodated with all the little wants of life, than Col. or Sir Allan.  He reasons candidly about the second sight; but I wish he had enquired more, before he ventured to say he even doubted of the possibility of such an unusual and useless deviation from all the known laws of nature[1130].  The notion of the second sight I consider as a remnant of superstitious ignorance and credulity, which a philosopher will set down as such, till the contrary is clearly proved, and then it will be classed among the other certain, though unaccountable parts of our nature, like dreams[1131], and-I do not know what.  ’In regard to the language, it has the merit of being all his own.  Many words of foreign extraction are used, where, I believe, common ones would do as well, especially on familiar occasions.  Yet I believe he could not express himself so forcibly in any other stile.  I am charmed with his researches concerning the Erse language, and the antiquity of their manuscripts.  I am quite convinced; and I shall rank Ossian, and his Fingals and Oscars, amongst the Nursery Tales, not the true history of our country, in all time to come.