A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

S >> Samuel Johnson >> A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND


INCH KEITH


I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, so
long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited; and
was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by
finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my
inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are
sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less
hospitable than we have passed.

On the eighteenth of August we left Edinburgh, a city too well known to
admit description, and directed our course northward, along the eastern
coast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who
could stay with us only long enough to shew us how much we lost at
separation.

As we crossed the Frith of Forth, our curiosity was attracted by Inch
Keith, a small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited,
though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their
notice. Here, by climbing with some difficulty over shattered crags, we
made the first experiment of unfrequented coasts. Inch Keith is nothing
more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of
grass, and very fertile of thistles. A small herd of cows grazes
annually upon it in the summer. It seems never to have afforded to man
or beast a permanent habitation.

We found only the ruins of a small fort, not so injured by time but that
it might be easily restored to its former state. It seems never to have
been intended as a place of strength, nor was built to endure a siege,
but merely to afford cover to a few soldiers, who perhaps had the charge
of a battery, or were stationed to give signals of approaching danger.
There is therefore no provision of water within the walls, though the
spring is so near, that it might have been easily enclosed. One of the
stones had this inscription: 'Maria Reg. 1564.' It has probably been
neglected from the time that the whole island had the same king.

We left this little island with our thoughts employed awhile on the
different appearance that it would have made, if it had been placed at
the same distance from London, with the same facility of approach; with
what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchased, and
with what expensive industry they would have been cultivated and adorned.

When we landed, we found our chaise ready, and passed through Kinghorn,
Kirkaldy, and Cowpar, places not unlike the small or straggling market-
towns in those parts of England where commerce and manufactures have not
yet produced opulence.

Though we were yet in the most populous part of Scotland, and at so small
a distance from the capital, we met few passengers.

The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a southern stranger
a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption
of toll-gates. Where the bottom is rocky, as it seems commonly to be in
Scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour, but it never
wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materials are
necessary, the ground once consolidated is rarely broken; for the inland
commerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often transported
otherwise than by water. The carriages in common use are small carts,
drawn each by one little horse; and a man seems to derive some degree of
dignity and importance from the reputation of possessing a two-horse
cart.




ST. ANDREWS


At an hour somewhat late we came to St. Andrews, a city once
archiepiscopal; where that university still subsists in which philosophy
was formerly taught by Buchanan, whose name has as fair a claim to
immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer
than the instability of vernacular languages admits.

We found, that by the interposition of some invisible friend, lodgings
had been provided for us at the house of one of the professors, whose
easy civility quickly made us forget that we were strangers; and in the
whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and
entertained with all the elegance of lettered hospitality.

In the morning we rose to perambulate a city, which only history shews to
have once flourished, and surveyed the ruins of ancient magnificence, of
which even the ruins cannot long be visible, unless some care be taken to
preserve them; and where is the pleasure of preserving such mournful
memorials? They have been till very lately so much neglected, that every
man carried away the stones who fancied that he wanted them.

The cathedral, of which the foundations may be still traced, and a small
part of the wall is standing, appears to have been a spacious and
majestick building, not unsuitable to the primacy of the kingdom. Of the
architecture, the poor remains can hardly exhibit, even to an artist, a
sufficient specimen. It was demolished, as is well known, in the tumult
and violence of Knox's reformation.

Not far from the cathedral, on the margin of the water, stands a fragment
of the castle, in which the archbishop anciently resided. It was never
very large, and was built with more attention to security than pleasure.
Cardinal Beatoun is said to have had workmen employed in improving its
fortifications at the time when he was murdered by the ruffians of
reformation, in the manner of which Knox has given what he himself calls
a merry narrative.

The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised
an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike
ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own
thoughts, and who, conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution
of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long
transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade
and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too
fast to that laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which
men, not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easily
shelter themselves from rigour and constraint.

The city of St. Andrews, when it had lost its archiepiscopal
pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streets is now lost; and in
those that remain, there is silence and solitude of inactive indigence
and gloomy depopulation.

The university, within a few years, consisted of three colleges, but is
now reduced to two; the college of St. Leonard being lately dissolved by
the sale of its buildings and the appropriation of its revenues to the
professors of the two others. The chapel of the alienated college is yet
standing, a fabrick not inelegant of external structure; but I was
always, by some civil excuse, hindred from entering it. A decent
attempt, as I was since told, has been made to convert it into a kind of
green-house, by planting its area with shrubs. This new method of
gardening is unsuccessful; the plants do not hitherto prosper. To what
use it will next be put I have no pleasure in conjecturing. It is
something that its present state is at least not ostentatiously
displayed. Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue.

The dissolution of St. Leonard's college was doubtless necessary; but of
that necessity there is reason to complain. It is surely not without
just reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending,
and the wealth encreasing, denies any participation of its prosperity to
its literary societies; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising
palaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust.

Of the two colleges yet standing, one is by the institution of its
founder appropriated to Divinity. It is said to be capable of containing
fifty students; but more than one must occupy a chamber. The library,
which is of late erection, is not very spacious, but elegant and
luminous.

The doctor, by whom it was shewn, hoped to irritate or subdue my English
vanity by telling me, that we had no such repository of books in England.

Saint Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and
education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and
exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and
dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of
commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the desire of
knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is
in danger of yielding to the love of money.

The students however are represented as at this time not exceeding a
hundred. Perhaps it may be some obstruction to their increase that there
is no episcopal chapel in the place. I saw no reason for imputing their
paucity to the present professors; nor can the expence of an academical
education be very reasonably objected. A student of the highest class
may keep his annual session, or as the English call it, his term, which
lasts seven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for
less than ten; in which board, lodging, and instruction are all included.

The chief magistrate resident in the university, answering to our vice-
chancellor, and to the _rector magnificus_ on the continent, had commonly
the title of Lord Rector; but being addressed only as Mr. Rector in an
inauguratory speech by the present chancellor, he has fallen from his
former dignity of style. Lordship was very liberally annexed by our
ancestors to any station or character of dignity: They said, the Lord
General, and Lord Ambassador; so we still say, my Lord, to the judge upon
the circuit, and yet retain in our Liturgy the Lords of the Council.

In walking among the ruins of religious buildings, we came to two vaults
over which had formerly stood the house of the sub-prior. One of the
vaults was inhabited by an old woman, who claimed the right of abode
there, as the widow of a man whose ancestors had possessed the same
gloomy mansion for no less than four generations. The right, however it
began, was considered as established by legal prescription, and the old
woman lives undisturbed. She thinks however that she has a claim to
something more than sufferance; for as her husband's name was Bruce, she
is allied to royalty, and told Mr. Boswell that when there were persons
of quality in the place, she was distinguished by some notice; that
indeed she is now neglected, but she spins a thread, has the company of
her cat, and is troublesome to nobody.

Having now seen whatever this ancient city offered to our curiosity, we
left it with good wishes, having reason to be highly pleased with the
attention that was paid us. But whoever surveys the world must see many
things that give him pain. The kindness of the professors did not
contribute to abate the uneasy remembrance of an university declining, a
college alienated, and a church profaned and hastening to the ground.

St. Andrews indeed has formerly suffered more atrocious ravages and more
extensive destruction, but recent evils affect with greater force. We
were reconciled to the sight of archiepiscopal ruins. The distance of a
calamity from the present time seems to preclude the mind from contact or
sympathy. Events long past are barely known; they are not considered. We
read with as little emotion the violence of Knox and his followers, as
the irruptions of Alaric and the Goths. Had the university been
destroyed two centuries ago, we should not have regretted it; but to see
it pining in decay and struggling for life, fills the mind with mournful
images and ineffectual wishes.




ABERBROTHICK


As we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind
our way. The roads of Scotland afford little diversion to the traveller,
who seldom sees himself either encountered or overtaken, and who has
nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible boundaries, or
are separated by walls of loose stone. From the bank of the Tweed to St.
Andrews I had never seen a single tree, which I did not believe to have
grown up far within the present century. Now and then about a
gentleman's house stands a small plantation, which in Scotch is called a
policy, but of these there are few, and those few all very young. The
variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown. There is no tree for
either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger,
and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness, except that in
the road between Kirkaldy and Cowpar, I passed for a few yards between
two hedges. A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At
St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice;
I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so. This,
said he, is nothing to another a few miles off. I was still less
delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. Nay, said
a gentleman that stood by, I know but of this and that tree in the
county.

The Lowlands of Scotland had once undoubtedly an equal portion of woods
with other countries. Forests are every where gradually diminished, as
architecture and cultivation prevail by the increase of people and the
introduction of arts. But I believe few regions have been denuded like
this, where many centuries must have passed in waste without the least
thought of future supply. Davies observes in his account of Ireland,
that no Irishman had ever planted an orchard. For that negligence some
excuse might be drawn from an unsettled state of life, and the
instability of property; but in Scotland possession has long been secure,
and inheritance regular, yet it may be doubted whether before the Union
any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.

Of this improvidence no other account can be given than that it probably
began in times of tumult, and continued because it had begun. Established
custom is not easily broken, till some great event shakes the whole
system of things, and life seems to recommence upon new principles. That
before the Union the Scots had little trade and little money, is no valid
apology; for plantation is the least expensive of all methods of
improvement. To drop a seed into the ground can cost nothing, and the
trouble is not great of protecting the young plant, till it is out of
danger; though it must be allowed to have some difficulty in places like
these, where they have neither wood for palisades, nor thorns for hedges.

Our way was over the Firth of Tay, where, though the water was not wide,
we paid four shillings for ferrying the chaise. In Scotland the
necessaries of life are easily procured, but superfluities and elegancies
are of the same price at least as in England, and therefore may be
considered as much dearer.

We stopped a while at Dundee, where I remember nothing remarkable, and
mounting our chaise again, came about the close of the day to
Aberbrothick.

The monastery of Aberbrothick is of great renown in the history of
Scotland. Its ruins afford ample testimony of its ancient magnificence:
Its extent might, I suppose, easily be found by following the walls among
the grass and weeds, and its height is known by some parts yet standing.
The arch of one of the gates is entire, and of another only so far
dilapidated as to diversify the appearance. A square apartment of great
loftiness is yet standing; its use I could not conjecture, as its
elevation was very disproportionate to its area. Two corner towers,
particularly attracted our attention. Mr. Boswell, whose inquisitiveness
is seconded by great activity, scrambled in at a high window, but found
the stairs within broken, and could not reach the top. Of the other
tower we were told that the inhabitants sometimes climbed it, but we did
not immediately discern the entrance, and as the night was gathering upon
us, thought proper to desist. Men skilled in architecture might do what
we did not attempt: They might probably form an exact ground-plot of this
venerable edifice. They may from some parts yet standing conjecture its
general form, and perhaps by comparing it with other buildings of the
same kind and the same age, attain an idea very near to truth. I should
scarcely have regretted my journey, had it afforded nothing more than the
sight of Aberbrothick.




MONTROSE


Leaving these fragments of magnificence, we travelled on to Montrose,
which we surveyed in the morning, and found it well built, airy, and
clean. The townhouse is a handsome fabrick with a portico. We then went
to view the English chapel, and found a small church, clean to a degree
unknown in any other part of Scotland, with commodious galleries, and
what was yet less expected, with an organ.

At our inn we did not find a reception such as we thought proportionate
to the commercial opulence of the place; but Mr. Boswell desired me to
observe that the innkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as
well as I could.

When I had proceeded thus far, I had opportunities of observing what I
had never heard, that there are many beggars in Scotland. In Edinburgh
the proportion is, I think, not less than in London, and in the smaller
places it is far greater than in English towns of the same extent. It
must, however, be allowed that they are not importunate, nor clamorous.
They solicit silently, or very modestly, and therefore though their
behaviour may strike with more force the heart of a stranger, they are
certainly in danger of missing the attention of their countrymen. Novelty
has always some power, an unaccustomed mode of begging excites an
unaccustomed degree of pity. But the force of novelty is by its own
nature soon at an end; the efficacy of outcry and perseverance is
permanent and certain.

The road from Montrose exhibited a continuation of the same appearances.
The country is still naked, the hedges are of stone, and the fields so
generally plowed that it is hard to imagine where grass is found for the
horses that till them. The harvest, which was almost ripe, appeared very
plentiful.

Early in the afternoon Mr. Boswell observed that we were at no great
distance from the house of lord Monboddo. The magnetism of his
conversation easily drew us out of our way, and the entertainment which
we received would have been a sufficient recompense for a much greater
deviation.

The roads beyond Edinburgh, as they are less frequented, must be expected
to grow gradually rougher; but they were hitherto by no means
incommodious. We travelled on with the gentle pace of a Scotch driver,
who having no rivals in expedition, neither gives himself nor his horses
unnecessary trouble. We did not affect the impatience we did not feel,
but were satisfied with the company of each other as well riding in the
chaise, as sitting at an inn. The night and the day are equally solitary
and equally safe; for where there are so few travellers, why should there
be robbers.




ABERDEEN


We came somewhat late to Aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that we had
some difficulty in obtaining admission, till Mr. Boswell made himself
known: His name overpowered all objection, and we found a very good house
and civil treatment.

I received the next day a very kind letter from Sir Alexander Gordon,
whom I had formerly known in London, and after a cessation of all
intercourse for near twenty years met here professor of physic in the
King's College. Such unexpected renewals of acquaintance may be numbered
among the most pleasing incidents of life.

The knowledge of one professor soon procured me the notice of the rest,
and I did not want any token of regard, being conducted wherever there
was any thing which I desired to see, and entertained at once with the
novelty of the place, and the kindness of communication.

To write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of
geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered
coast, has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation; yet as Scotland
is little known to the greater part of those who may read these
observations, it is not superfluous to relate, that under the name of
Aberdeen are comprised two towns standing about a mile distant from each
other, but governed, I think, by the same magistrates.

Old Aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, in which are still to be seen
the remains of the cathedral. It has the appearance of a town in decay,
having been situated in times when commerce was yet unstudied, with very
little attention to the commodities of the harbour.

New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the shew of
increasing opulence. It is built by the water-side. The houses are
large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean. They build almost
wholly with the granite used in the new pavement of the streets of
London, which is well known not to want hardness, yet they shape it
easily. It is beautiful and must be very lasting.

What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants
of Aberdeen, I have not inquired. The manufacture which forces itself
upon a stranger's eye is that of knit-stockings, on which the women of
the lower class are visibly employed.

In each of these towns there is a college, or in stricter language, an
university; for in both there are professors of the same parts of
learning, and the colleges hold their sessions and confer degrees
separately, with total independence of one on the other.

In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first president
was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as one of the
revivers of elegant learning. When he studied at Paris, he was
acquainted with Erasmus, who afterwards gave him a public testimony of
his esteem, by inscribing to him a catalogue of his works. The stile of
Boethius, though, perhaps, not always rigorously pure, is formed with
great diligence upon ancient models, and wholly uninfected with monastic
barbarity. His history is written with elegance and vigour, but his
fabulousness and credulity are justly blamed. His fabulousness, if he
was the author of the fictions, is a fault for which no apology can be
made; but his credulity may be excused in an age, when all men were
credulous. Learning was then rising on the world; but ages so long
accustomed to darkness, were too much dazzled with its light to see any
thing distinctly. The first race of scholars, in the fifteenth century,
and some time after, were, for the most part, learning to speak, rather
than to think, and were therefore more studious of elegance than of
truth. The contemporaries of Boethius thought it sufficient to know what
the ancients had delivered. The examination of tenets and of facts was
reserved for another generation.

* * * * *

Boethius, as president of the university, enjoyed a revenue of forty
Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling
money. In the present age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for
the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the
demands of life, as to suppose four and forty shillings a year, an
honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal, not only to the needs, but
to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of England was undoubtedly to that
of Scotland more than five to one, and it is known that Henry the eighth,
among whose faults avarice was never reckoned, granted to Roger Ascham,
as a reward of his learning, a pension of ten pounds a year.

The other, called the Marischal College, is in the new town. The hall is
large and well lighted. One of its ornaments is the picture of Arthur
Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin
poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.

In the library I was shewn some curiosities; a Hebrew manuscript of
exquisite penmanship, and a Latin translation of Aristotle's Politicks by
Leonardus Aretinus, written in the Roman character with nicety and
beauty, which, as the art of printing has made them no longer necessary,
are not now to be found. This was one of the latest performances of the
transcribers, for Aretinus died but about twenty years before typography
was invented. This version has been printed, and may be found in
libraries, but is little read; for the same books have been since
translated both by Victorius and Lambinus, who lived in an age more
cultivated, but perhaps owed in part to Aretinus that they were able to
excel him. Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge,
and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.

In both these colleges the methods of instruction are nearly the same;
the lectures differing only by the accidental difference of diligence, or
ability in the professors. The students wear scarlet gowns and the
professors black, which is, I believe, the academical dress in all the
Scottish universities, except that of Edinburgh, where the scholars are
not distinguished by any particular habit. In the King's College there
is kept a public table, but the scholars of the Marischal College are
boarded in the town. The expence of living is here, according to the
information that I could obtain, somewhat more than at St. Andrews.