We got to Fores[361] at night, and found an admirable inn, in which Dr. Johnson was pleased to meet with a landlord who styled himself ‘Wine-Cooper, from LONDON.’

FRIDAY, AUGUST 27.

It was dark when we came to Fores last night; so we did not see what is called King Duncan’s monument[362].  I shall now mark some gleanings of Dr. Johnson’s conversation.  I spoke of Leonidas[363], and said there were some good passages in it.  JOHNSON.  ‘Why, you must seek for them.’  He said, Paul Whitehead’s Manners[364] was a poor performance.  Speaking of Derrick, he told me ’he had a kindness for him, and had often said, that if his letters had been written by one of a more established name, they would have been thought very pretty letters[365].’

This morning I introduced the subject of the origin of evil[366].  JOHNSON.  ’Moral evil is occasioned by free will, which implies choice between good and evil.  With all the evil that there is, there is no man but would rather be a free agent, than a mere machine without the evil; and what is best for each individual, must be best for the whole.  If a man would rather be the machine, I cannot argue with him.  He is a different being from me.’  BOSWELL.  ’A man, as a machine, may have agreeable sensations; for instance, he may have pleasure in musick.’  JOHNSON.  ’No, Sir, he cannot have pleasure in musick; at least no power of producing musick; for he who can produce musick may let it alone:  he who can play upon a fiddle may break it:  such a man is not a machine.’  This reasoning satisfied me.  It is certain, there cannot be a free agent, unless there is the power of being evil as well as good.  We must take the inherent possibilities of things into consideration, in our reasonings or conjectures concerning the works of GOD.

We came to Nairn to breakfast.  Though a county town and a royal burgh, it is a miserable place.  Over the room where we sat, a girl was spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing an Erse song[367]:  ’I’ll warrant you, (said Dr. Johnson.) one of the songs of Ossian.’  He then repeated these lines:—–­

     ’Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound. 
        All at her work the village maiden sings;
      Nor while she turns the giddy wheel around,
        Revolves the sad vicissitude of things[368].’

I thought I had heard these lines before.  JOHNSON.  ’I fancy not, Sir; for they are in a detached poem, the name of which I do not remember, written by one Giffard, a parson.’

I expected Mr. Kenneth M’Aulay[369], the minister of Calder, who published the history of St. Kilda[370], a book which Dr. Johnson liked, would have met us here, as I had written to him from Aberdeen.  But I received a letter from him, telling me that he could not leave home, as he was to administer the sacrament the following Sunday, and earnestly requesting to see us at his manse.  ‘We’ll go,’ said Dr. Johnson; which we accordingly did.  Mrs. M’Aulay received us, and told us her husband was in the church distributing tokens[371].  We arrived between twelve and one o’clock, and it was near three before he came to us.