After dinner, McQueen sat by us a while, and talked with us.  He said, all the Laird of Glenmorison’s people would bleed for him if they were well used; but that seventy men had gone out of the Glen to America.  That he himself intended to go next year; for that the rent of his farm, which twenty years ago was only five pounds, was now raised to twenty pounds.  That he could pay ten pounds and live; but no more.[428] Dr. Johnson said, he wished M’Queen laird of Glenmorison, and the laird to go to America.  M’Queen very generously answered, he should be sorry for it; for the laird could not shift for himself in America as he could do.

I talked of the officers whom we had left to-day; how much service they had seen, and how little they got for it, even of fame.  JOHNSON.  ’Sir, a soldier gets as little as any man can get.’  BOSWELL.  ’Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war, who were not Generals.’[429] JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done.  You must consider, that a thing is valued according to its rarity.  A pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady’s finger.’  I wish our friend Goldsmith had heard this.[430]

I yesterday expressed my wonder that John Hay, one of our guides, who had been pressed aboard a man of war, did not choose to continue in it longer than nine months, after which time he got off.  JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, no man will be a sailor, who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for, being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.’[431] We had tea in the afternoon, and our landlord’s daughter, a modest civil girl, very neatly drest, made it for us.  She told us, she had been a year at Inverness, and learnt reading and writing, sewing, knotting[432], working lace, and pastry.  Dr. Johnson made her a present of a book which he had bought at Inverness[433].

The room had some deals laid across the joists, as a kind of ceiling.  There were two beds in the room, and a woman’s gown was hung on a rope to make a curtain of separation between them.  Joseph had sheets, which my wife had sent with us, laid on them.  We had much hesitation, whether to undress, or lie down with our clothes on.  I said at last, ’I’ll plunge in!  There will be less harbour for vermin about me, when I am stripped!’ Dr. Johnson said, he was like one hesitating whether to go into the cold bath.  At last he resolved too.  I observed he might serve a campaign.  JOHNSON.  ’I could do all that can be done by patience:  whether I should have strength enough, I know not.’  He was in excellent humour.  To see the Rambler as I saw him to-night, was really an amusement.  I yesterday told him, I was thinking of writing a poetical letter to him, on his return from Scotland, in the style of Swift’s humorous epistle in the character of Mary Gulliver to her husband, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, on his return to England from the country of the HOUYHNHUMS:—­