again as a popular bathing-place. In this respect it has not its rival, I was told, in the north of Scotland. Here Johnson "fixed the verge of the Highlands; for here he first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language."[1] Over the room in the inn where he and Boswell sat "a girl was spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing an Erse song." It was thirty years later that Wordsworth in like manner heard "The Solitary Reaper":
"Yon solitary Highland lass
Reaping and singing by herself."
Even so far back as the reign of James VI. both languages were spoken in Nairn. "It was one of that king's witticisms to boast that in Scotland he had a town 'sae lang that the folk at the tae end couldna understand the tongue spoken at the tother.'"[2] Gaelic is no longer heard in its streets. The verge of the Highlands must now be fixed farther to the west. Nine years before Johnson's visit the little town had been stirred up by Wesley. On Monday, June 11, 1764, he recorded in his journal: "While we were dining at Nairn, the innkeeper said, 'Sir, the gentlemen of the town have read the little book you gave me on Saturday, and would be glad if you would please give them a sermon.' Upon my consenting, the bell was immediately rung, and the congregation was quickly in the kirk."[3]
From Nairn our travellers turned a few miles out of their course to visit the Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in his manse at Cawdor. To Johnson he was known by his History of St. Kilda—"a very pretty piece of topography" as he called it to the author, "who did not seem much to mind the compliment." To us he is interesting as the great-uncle of Lord Macaulay. "From his conversation," says Boswell, "Dr. Johnson was convinced that he had not written the book which goes under his name. 'There is a combination in it' (he said) 'of which Macaulay is not capable.'" "To those who happen to have read the work," writes Sir George Trevelyan, "Johnson's decision will give a very poor notion of my ancestor's abilities."[4] Let him take comfort. The present minister of Cawdor, to whose civility I am indebted, told
- ↑ The language of the Highlanders is generally called Erse by the English writers of this period; sometimes irish and Celtic. M'Nicol objected to the term Erse. "The Caledonians," he says, "always called their native language Gaelic." Remarks on Johnson's Journey, p. 432. Macpherson, in the title-page of Ossian, calls it Galic.
- ↑ Murray's Handbook for Scotland, ed. 1867, p. 308.
- ↑ Wesley's Journal, iii. 182.
- ↑ Life of Lord Macaulay, ed. 1877, i. 6.
