’Your Letter told me that you were better.  When you write do not forget to confirm that account.  I had very little ill health while I was on the journey, and bore rain and wind tolerably well.  I had a cold and deafness only for a few days, and those days I passed at a good house.  I have traversed the east coast of Scotland from south to north from Edinburgh to Inverness, and the west coast from north to south, from the Highlands to Glasgow, and am come back as I went,

’Sir,

’Your affectionate humble servant,

‘SAM.  JOHNSON.’

’Jan. 15, 1774.

’To the Reverend Dr. Taylor,

’in Ashbourn,

‘Derbyshire.’

[1122] Johnson speaking of this tour on April 10, 1783, said:—­’I got an acquisition of more ideas by it than by anything that I remember.’ Ante, iv. 199.

[1123] See ante, p. 48.

[1124] See ante, i. 408, 443, note 2, and ii. 303.

[1125] ’It may be doubted whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 8.

[1126] See ante, p. 69.

[1127] Lord Balmerino’s estate was forfeited to the Crown on his conviction for high treason in 1746 (ante, i. 180).

[1128] ’I know not that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 122.  See ante, p. 304.

[1129] See ante, ii. 300.

[1130] ’Strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur.  This faculty of seeing things out of sight is local and commonly useless.  It is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 106.

[1131] ’To the confidence of these objections it may be replied... that second sight is only wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no more difficulty than dreams.’ Ib.

[1132] The fossilist of last century is the geologist of this.  Neither term is in Johnson’s Dictionary, but Johnson in his Journey (Works, ix. 43) speaks of ‘Mr. Janes the fossilist.’

[1133] Ib. p. 157.

[1134] Ib. p. 6.  I do not see anything silly in the story.  It is however better told in a letter to Mrs. Thrale. Piozzi Letters, i. 112.

[1135] Mr. Orme, one of the ablest historians of this age, is of the same opinion.  He said to me, ’There are in that book thoughts, which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished—­like pebbles rolled in the ocean.’  BOSWELL.  See ante, ii. 300, and iii. 284.

[1136] See ante, iii. 301.

[1137] Johnson (Works, ix. 158) mentions ’a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it.’  See ante, ii. 307, 311.