INTRODUCTION.

���TRAVELLER who passed through the Hebrides in the year 1786 recorded that in many houses he was given the room to sleep in which had been occupied by Dr. Johnson. 1 Twenty-eight years later, when Sir Walter

Scott with some of his friends

landed in Skye, it was found

on inquiry that the first

thought which had come into

each man's mind was of John- son's Latin Ode to Mrs.

Thrale. 2 The Highlanders at

Dunvegan, Scott goes on to

say, saw that about Johnson

there was something worthy

of respect, " they could not

tell what, and long spoke of

him as the Sassenach i/io/ir,

or big Englishman." :! He

still lives among them, mainly,

no doubt, by his own and

Boswell's books, but partly

also by tradition. Very few

Of the houses remain where UK . JOHNSON'S IJEDRUOM, DUNVEGAN.

he visited. Nevertheless, in

two of these in the Hebrides, and in one in the Lowlands, I was

shown his bedroom. Proud, indeed, would the old man have been

1 John Knox's Tour through Ike Highlands, ' Croker's Correspondence, ii. 33 ; Croker's PP- 77, 132. Boswdl, p. 409.

2 Croker's Boswell, p. 314.

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