’Mr. Boswell has this day shewn me a letter, in which you complain of a passage in The Journey to the Hebrides. My meaning is mistaken.  I did not intend to say that you had personally made any cession of the rights of your house, or any acknowledgement of the superiority of M’Leod of Dunvegan.  I only designed to express what I thought generally admitted,—­that the house of Rasay allowed the superiority of the house of Dunvegan.  Even this I now find to be erroneous, and will therefore omit or retract it in the next edition.

’Though what I had said had been true, if it had been disagreeable to you, I should have wished it unsaid; for it is not my business to adjust precedence.  As it is mistaken, I find myself disposed to correct, both by my respect for you, and my reverence for truth.  ’As I know not when the book will be reprinted, I have desired Mr. Boswell to anticipate the correction in the Edinburgh papers.  This is all that can be done.

’I hope I may now venture to desire that my compliments may be made, and my gratitude expressed, to Lady Rasay, Mr. Malcolm M’Leod, Mr. Donald M’Queen, and all the gentlemen and all the ladies whom I saw in the island of Rasay; a place which I remember with too much pleasure and too much kindness, not to be sorry that my ignorance, or hasty persuasion, should, for a single moment, have violated its tranquillity.

’I beg you all to forgive an undesigned and involuntary injury, and to consider me as,

’Sir, your most obliged,

’And most humble servant,

‘SAM.  JOHNSON[1142].’

‘London, May 6, 1775.’

It would be improper for me to boast of my own labours; but I cannot refrain from publishing such praise as I received from such a man as Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, after the perusal of the original manuscript of my Journal[1143].

’To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

’Edinburgh, March 7, 1777.

’My DEAR SIR,

’I ought to have thanked you sooner, for your very obliging letter, and for the singular confidence you are pleased to place in me, when you trust me with such a curious and valuable deposit as the papers you have sent me[1144].  Be assured I have a due sense of this favour, and shall faithfully and carefully return them to you.  You may rely that I shall neither copy any part, nor permit the papers to be seen.

’They contain a curious picture of society, and form a journal on the most instructive plan that can possibly be thought of; for I am not sure that an ordinary observer would become so well acquainted either with Dr. Johnson, or with the manners of the Hebrides, by a personal intercourse, as by a perusal of your Journal.

’I am, very truly,

’Dear Sir,

’Your most obedient,

’And affectionate humble servant,

‘WILLIAM FORBES.’

When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to ’that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns[1145],’ I feel an impression at once awful and tender.—­Requiescant in pace!