term almost obsolete, of apposing them*. To this purpose, I once heard him fay, that in a vifit to Mrs. Percy, who had the care of one of the young princes, at the queen's houfe, the prince of Wales, being then a child, came into the room, and began to play about; when Johnson, with his ufual curiofity, took an opportunity of asking him what books he was reading, and, in particular, enquired as to his knowledge of the Scriptures the prince, in his answers, gave him great fatisfaction; and, as to the last, faid, that part of his daily exercises was to read Oftervald. In many families into which he went, the fathers were often defirous of producing their fons to him for his opinion of their parts, and of the proficiency they had

*To appofe fignifies to put queftions. Ingulphus, abbot of Croyland, who was educated in the old school of the abbey of Weftminster, relates, that he was frequently examined in this manner by Editha the wife of Edward the confeffor:- Vidi ego illam ⚫ multotiens, cum patrem meum in regis curia morantem adhuc puer inviferem, et fæpius mihi de fcholis venienti de literis ac • verfu meo apponebat, cum occurrerem, et libentiffime de grammatica foliditate ad logicam levitatem, qua callebat, declinans, cum argumentorum fubtili ligamine me conclufiffet, femper tribus aut quatuor nummis per ancillulam numeratis ad regium penu tranfmifit, et refectum dimifit.'--Ingulphi hiftoria, inter fcriptores poft Bedam, edit. Lond. 1596, p. 509. a.

Which paffage, Stow in his annals, has thus rendered:

I have feen her (faith Ingulphus) then, when being yet but a · boy, I came to fee my father dwelling in the king's court. And often coming from school, when I met her, fhe would appofe me ⚫ touching my learning and leffon, and falling from grammar to. logicke, wherein the had fome knowledge, would fubtilly con<clude an argument with me, and by a hand-maiden give three or • foure peeces of money, and fend me unto the place where I fhould receive fome victuals, and fo be difmiffed.'

4

made

made at fchool, which, in frequent inftances, came out to be but finall. He once told me, that being at the houfe of a friend, whofe fon in his fchool-vacation was come home, the father fpoke of this child as a lad of pregnant parts, and faid, that he was well versed in the claffics, and acquainted with hiftory, in the ftudy whereof he took great delight. Having this information, Johnson, as a teft of the young fcholar's attainments, put this question to him: . At what 'time did the heathen oracles ceafe?'—The boy, not in the least daunted, answered: At the diffolution of religious houses.'

By the exercise of fuch offices as thefe; by his difpofition to encourage children in their learning, and joining admonition to inftruction, to exhort them to obedience to their parents and teachers, Johnson rendered himself a welcome guest in all the families into which he was admitted, and, in various ways, did he employ his talents in the gratification of his friends. A gentleman, with whom he had maintained a long and strict friendship, had the misfortune to lose his wife, and wished Johnson, from the outlines of her character, which he fhould give him, and his own knowledge of her worth, to compose a monumental infcription for her: he returned the hufband thanks for the confidence he placed in him, and acquitted himself of the task in the following fine eulogium, now to be seen in the parish church of Watford in Hertfordshire:

In the vault below are depofited the remains of JANE BELL, wife of JOHN BELL, Efq; who, in the fifty-third year of her age, furrounded with many wordly bleffings, heard, with fortitude and compofure truly great, the horrible malady, which had for fome time begun to afflict her,

pronounced incurable;

and for more than three years,

endured with patience and concealed with decency, the daily tortures of gradual death;

continued to divide the hours not allotted to devotion, between the cares of her family, and the converfe of her friends;

rewarded the attendance of duty,

and acknowledged the offices of affection; and while the endeavoured to alleviate by chearfulness, her husband's fufferings and forrows, increased them by her gratitude for his care, and her folicitude for his quiet.

To the memory of these virtues, more highly honoured as more familiarly known, this monument is erected by JOHN BELL*.

He had long been folicited by Mr. James Bofwell, a native of Scotland, and one that highly valued him, to accompany him in a journey to the Hebrides, or Western islands of that kingdom, as to a part of the world in which nature was to be viewed in her rudest and moft terrific form; and where, whatever was

She died in the month of October, 1771.

wanting

wanting to delight the eye, or foothe the imagination, was made up by objects that could not fail to expand it, and turn delight into astonishment; and being now, in the year 1773, his own mafter, having no literary engagement to fulfil, he accepted the invitation. He began the tour propofed, in the autumn of the year above-mentioned, and, computing from the eighteenth day of Auguft, when he left Edinburgh, to the ninth of November, when he returned thither, completed it in feven weeks and fix days; and, at his return to England, drew up and published an account of it.

The Western islands of Scotland are called by the ancient geographers, the Æbudæ and Hebrides. The Scotch historians, namely, Hector Boethius, bishop Lefly, Buchanan, and Johnson, have given us little more concerning them than their names. Camden has given a general, but brief description of them, and speaks of their number as about forty-four; but bishop Gibson adds, that they have been reckoned at three hundred, in which computation every fpot or iflet must be supposed to be included: but a particular defcription of the Western iflands was wanting to the world till the year 1703, when a perfon of the name of Martin, published a book with that title, containing a full account of those islands, and of the government, religion, and customs of the inhabitants thereof; and also of the second fight or faculty of fore-feeing things by vifion, fo common among

them.'

Of this writer little more is known, than that of which himself feems to be the relator, viz. that he was born in one of the most spacious and fertile ifles

in the weft of Scotland; and, befides his liberal education at the university, had the advantage of feeing foreign places, and converfing with fome of the royal fociety; but who, nevertheless, feems to have been a very weak, credulous, and fuperftitious man, and, notwithstanding his liberal education, with respect both to matter and form, an injudicious writer. The fame perfon had a few years before made a voyage to St. Kilda, the most remote of the Western islands, and, in 1698, publifhed a defcription thereof.

The defects of Martin, in the accounts given by him of the Hebrides, and the inhabitants of the feveral ifles fo called, are amply fupplied by a late traveller thither, Mr. Pennant, who, in the years 1769 and 1772 made the tour of Scotland, and, with a curious and penetrating eye remarked all that feems to have been worthy of notice, refpecting either the fituation of the fpots by him defcribed, or the people whom neceffity has doomed, or particular circumftances have led, to become dwellers there.

The extent of thefe iflands, from north to fouth, is computed at two hundred miles, and their medium width fuch as, were they one continent, would make a country as large as Scotland. Of the inhabitants, thofe of St. Kilda for inftance, fome are Chriftians, resembling, both in their religious tenets and the purity of their lives, thofe of the primitive times; others are of the Romish communion, and the reft are of that denomination of proteftants, who adhere to the reformation of that furious bigot John Knox. The civil conftitution of these feveral tracts of land, for countries they are not to be called, is uniform:

it