Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 195
On the next day we began our journey southwards. The weather was tempestuous. For half the day the ground was rough, and our horses were still small. Had they required much restraint, we might have been reduced to difficulties; for I think we had amongst us but one bridle. We fed the poor animals liberally, and they performed their journey well. In the latter part of the day, we came to a firm and smooth road, made by the soldiers, on which we travelled with great security, busied with contemplating the scene about us. The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark, but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills, on one side, and fell into one general channel that ran with great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough musick of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before. The streams, which ran cross the way from the hills to the main current, were so frequent, that after a while I began to count them; and, in ten miles, reckoned fifty-five, probably missing some, and having let some pass before they forced themselves upon my notice. At last we came to Inverary, where we found an inn, not only commodious, but magnificent.
The difficulties of peregrination were now at an end. Mr. Boswell had the honour of being known to the Duke of Argyle, by whom we were very kindly entertained at his splendid seat, and supplied with conveniences for surveying his spacious park and rising forests.
After two days stay at Inverary we proceeded Southward over Glencroe, a black and dreary region, now made easily passable by a military road, which rises from either end of the glen by an acclivity not dangerously steep, but sufficiently laborious. In the middle, at the top of the hill, is a seat with this inscription, ‘Rest, and be thankful.’ Stones were placed to mark the distances, which the inhabitants have taken away, resolved, they said, ‘to have no new miles.’
In this rainy season the hills streamed with waterfalls, which, crossing the way, formed currents on the other side, that ran in contrary directions as they fell to the north or south of the summit. Being, by the favour of the Duke, well mounted, I went up and down the hill with great convenience.
From Glencroe we passed through a pleasant country to the banks of Loch Lomond, and were received at the house of Sir James Colquhoun, who is owner of almost all the thirty islands of the Loch, which we went in a boat next morning to survey. The heaviness of the rain shortened our voyage, but we landed on one island planted with yew, and stocked with deer, and on another containing perhaps not more than half an acre, remarkable for the ruins of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her annual nest. Had Loch Lomond been in a happier climate, it would have been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which it incloses, and to have employed upon it all the arts of embellishment. But as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns; and shady thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.
Where the Loch discharges itself into a river, called the Leven, we passed a night with Mr. Smollet, a relation of Doctor Smollet, to whose memory he has raised an obelisk on the bank near the house in which he was born. The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat. Here we were met by a post-chaise, that conveyed us to Glasgow.
To describe a city so much frequented as Glasgow, is unnecessary. The prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many private houses, and a general appearance of wealth. It is the only episcopal city whose cathedral was left standing in the rage of Reformation. It is now divided into many separate places of worship, which, taken all together, compose a great pile, that had been some centuries in building, but was never finished; for the change of religion intercepted its progress, before the cross isle was added, which seems essential to a Gothick cathedral.
The college has not had a sufficient share of the increasing magnificence of the place. The session was begun; for it commences on the tenth of October and continues to the tenth of June, but the students appeared not numerous, being, I suppose, not yet returned from their several homes. The division of the academical year into one session, and one recess, seems to me better accommodated to the present state of life, than that variegation of time by terms and vacations derived from distant centuries, in which it was probably convenient, and still continued in the English universities. So many solid months as the Scotch scheme of education joins together, allow and encourage a plan for each part of the year; but with us, he that has settled himself to study in the college is soon tempted into the country, and he that has adjusted his life in the country, is summoned back to his college.
Yet when I have allowed to the universities of Scotland a more rational distribution of time, I have given them, so far as my inquiries have informed me, all that they can claim. The students, for the most part, go thither boys, and depart before they are men; they carry with them little fundamental knowledge, and therefore the superstructure cannot be lofty. The grammar schools are not generally well supplied; for the character of a school-master being there less honourable than in England, is seldom accepted by men who are capable to adorn it, and where the school has been deficient, the college can effect little.
Men bred in the universities of Scotland cannot be expected to be often decorated with the splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obtain a mediocrity of knowledge, between learning and ignorance, not inadequate to the purposes of common life, which is, I believe, very widely diffused among them, and which countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious, that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise, so vigorous, that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way to employment, riches, and distinction.
From Glasgow we directed our course to Auchinleck, an estate devolved, through a long series of ancestors, to Mr. Boswell’s father, the present possessor. In our way we found several places remarkable enough in themselves, but already described by those who viewed them at more leisure, or with much more skill; and stopped two days at Mr. Campbell’s, a gentleman married to Mr. Boswell’s sister.
Auchinleck, which signifies a stony field, seems not now to have any particular claim to its denomination. It is a district generally level, and sufficiently fertile, but like all the Western side of Scotland, incommoded by very frequent rain. It was, with the rest of the country, generally naked, till the present possessor finding, by the growth of some stately trees near his old castle, that the ground was favourable enough to timber, adorned it very diligently with annual plantations.
Lord Auchinleck, who is one of the Judges of Scotland, and therefore not wholly at leisure for domestick business or pleasure, has yet found time to make improvements in his patrimony. He has built a house of hewn stone, very stately, and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands with great tenderness to his tenants.
I was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion, than with the sullen dignity of the old castle. I clambered with Mr. Boswell among the ruins, which afford striking images of ancient life. It is, like other castles, built upon a point of rock, and was, I believe, anciently surrounded with a moat. There is another rock near it, to which the drawbridge, when it was let down, is said to have reached. Here, in the ages of tumult and rapine, the Laird was surprised and killed by the neighbouring Chief, who perhaps might have extinguished the family, had he not in a few days been seized and hanged, together with his sons, by Douglas, who came with his forces to the relief of Auchinleck.
At no great distance from the house runs a pleasing brook, by a red rock, out of which has been hewn a very agreeable and commodious summer-house, at less expence, as Lord Auchinleck told me, than would have been required to build a room of the same dimensions. The rock seems to have no more dampness than any other wall. Such opportunities of variety it is judicious not to neglect.
We now returned to Edinburgh, where I passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which perhaps disclaims a pedant’s praise.
The conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to the English; their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become in half a century provincial and rustick, even to themselves. The great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the English phrase, and the English pronunciation, and in splendid companies Scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an old Lady.
There is one subject of philosophical curiosity to be found in Edinburgh, which no other city has to shew; a college of the deaf and dumb, who are taught to speak, to read, to write, and to practice arithmetick, by a gentleman, whose name is Braidwood. The number which attends him is, I think, about twelve, which he brings together into a little school, and instructs according to their several degrees of proficiency.
I do not mean to mention the instruction of the deaf as new. Having been first practised upon the son of a constable of Spain, it was afterwards cultivated with much emulation in England, by Wallis and Holder, and was lately professed by Mr. Baker, who once flattered me with hopes of seeing his method published. How far any former teachers have succeeded, it is not easy to know; the improvement of Mr. Braidwood’s pupils is wonderful. They not only speak, write, and understand what is written, but if he that speaks looks towards them, and modifies his organs by distinct and full utterance, they know so well what is spoken, that it is an expression scarcely figurative to say, they hear with the eye. That any have attained to the power mentioned by Burnet, of feeling sounds, by laying a hand on the speaker’s mouth, I know not; but I have seen so much, that I can believe more; a single word, or a short sentence, I think, may possibly be so distinguished.
It will readily be supposed by those that consider this subject, that Mr. Braidwood’s scholars spell accurately. Orthography is vitiated among such as learn first to speak, and then to write, by imperfect notions of the relation between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students every character is of equal importance; for letters are to them not symbols of names, but of things; when they write they do not represent a sound, but delineate a form.
This school I visited, and found some of the scholars waiting for their master, whom they are said to receive at his entrance with smiling countenances and sparkling eyes, delighted with the hope of new ideas. One of the young Ladies had her slate before her, on which I wrote a question consisting of three figures, to be multiplied by two figures. She looked upon it, and quivering her fingers in a manner which I thought very pretty, but of which I know not whether it was art or play, multiplied the sum regularly in two lines, observing the decimal place; but did not add the two lines together, probably disdaining so easy an operation. I pointed at the place where the sum total should stand, and she noted it with such expedition as seemed to shew that she had it only to write.
It was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities capable of so much help; whatever enlarges hope, will exalt courage; after having seen the deaf taught arithmetick, who would be afraid to cultivate the Hebrides?
Such are the things which this journey has given me an opportunity of seeing, and such are the reflections which that sight has raised. Having passed my time almost wholly in cities, I may have been surprised by modes of life and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of wider survey and more varied conversation. Novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.
DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT
CONTENTS
PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.
REFERENCES TO THE SPEAKERS
HOUSE OF COMMONS, NOVEMBER 19, 1740.
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATE, WITH REGARD TO THE BILL FOR PROHIBITING THE EXPORTATION OF CORN, ETC.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, DEC. 2, 1740.
DEBATE RELATING TO A SEDITIOUS PAPER OF THE SAME KIND WITH THE CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EMBARGO ON PROVISIONS.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, DEC. 4-11, 1740.
ON INCORPORATING THE NEW-RAISED MEN INTO THE STANDING REGIMENTS.
HOUSE OF LORDS, DEC. 9, 1740.
DEBATE ON TAKING THE STATE OF THE ARMY INTO CONSIDERATION.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 12, 1740.
RESPECTING OFFICERS ON HALF-PAY.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, JAN. 24, 1740-1.
DEBATE ON AN ADDRESS FOR PAPERS RELATING TO ADMIRAL HADDOCK.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEB. 3, 1740-1.
DEBATE REGARDING THE DEPARTURE OF THE FRENCH AND SPANISH SQUADRONS.
HOUSE OF LORDS, FEB. 13, 1740-1.
DEBATE ON ADDRESSING HIS MAJESTY FOR REMOVING SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEB. 24, 1740-1.
DEBATE ON CLEANSING THE CITY OF WESTMINSTER.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEB. 27, 1740-1.
DEBATE ON THE SECOND READING OF A BILL TO PREVENT INCONVENIENCIES ARISING FROM INSURANCE OF SHIPS.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 2, 1740-1.
DEBATE ON THE BILL FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT AND INCREASE OF SEAMEN.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 13, 1740-1.
DEBATE ON THE BILL FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF MUTINY AND DESERTION.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 12, 1741.
DEBATE ON ADDRESSING THE KING.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 16, 1741.
DEBATE ON A MOTION FOR SUPPORTING THE QUEEN OF HUNGARY.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 1, 1741.
DEBATE ON CHOOSING A SPEAKER.
DECEMBER 4, 1741.
DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 8, 1741.
DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 9, 1741-2.
ON A MOTION FOR INQUIRING INTO THE CONDUCT OF AFFAIRS AT HOME AND ABROAD, DURING THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.
HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 20, 1742.
ON THE SECURITY AND PROTECTION OF TRADE AND NAVIGATION.
HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 21, 1742-3.
DEBATE ON SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS.
The House of Commons in the eighteenth century
PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.
The government of this country has long and justly been considered the best among the nations of Europe; and the English people have ever evinced a proportionate desire for information in its proceedings. But in the earlier days of our constitution, we shall find that much jealousy on the part of our rulers debarred the people from access to the national deliberations. Queen Elizabeth, with a sagacity that derived no assurance from the precedents of former times, foresaw the mighty power of the press, as an engine applied to state purposes, and accordingly aroused the spirit of her subjects, by causing the first gazettes to be published in the year of the armada [Footnote: See sir J. Mackintosh’s Defence in the Peltier case.]: and D’Ewes’s journals of her parliaments contain the earliest reports of parliamentary debates.
The first volume of the commons’ journals comprises the debates from the accession of James the first, to the cessation of parliaments under Charles the first. The publication, in 1766, of a member’s notes, furnished authentic debates of the session in 1621. Rushworth, in his voluminous collections, presents us with many of the debates during the civil wars. Gray’s more regular debates succeeded. From these, until the times that followed the glorious revolution in 1688, we have no reports of parliamentary proceedings, interesting as they must have been, on which we can place any more reliance, than on those of Dr. Johnson, which, we shall presently see, cannot pretend to the character of faithful reports, however deservedly eminent they are as eloquent and energetic compositions. But the revolution was not immediately followed by a liberal diffusion of parliamentary intelligence, for the newspapers of William’s reign only give occasionally a detached speech. That sovereign scarcely allowed liberty of speech to the members of parliament themselves, and was fully as tyrannical in disposition as his predecessor on the throne; but, happily for the English nation, he was tied and bound by the strong fetters of law.
The stormy period that ensued on William’s death, is somewhat illustrated by Boyer’s POLITICAL STATE. The HISTORICAL REGISTERS which appeared on the accession of George the first, may be considered as more faithful depositories of political information than Boyer’s partial publication. The spirited opposition to sir Robert Walpole excited an unprecedented anxiety in the nation to learn the internal proceedings of parliament. This wish on the part of constituents to know and scrutinize the conduct of their representatives, which to us appears so reasonable a claim, was regarded in a different light by our ancestors. But the frown of authority in the reign of George the second began to have less power to alarm a people whose minds were undergoing progressive illumination. A general desire was then loudly expressed for parliamentary information, which Cave sought to gratify by the insertion of the debates in the GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. The jealousy of the houses, however, subjected that indefatigable man to the practices of stratagem for the accomplishment of his design. He held the office of inspector of franks in the postoffice, which brought him into contact with the officers of both houses of parliament, and afforded him frequent and ready access to many of the members. Cave, availing himself of this advantage, frequented the houses when any debate of public interest was expected, and, along with a friend, posted himself in the gallery of the house of commons, and in some retired station in that of the lords, where, unobserved, they took notes of the several speeches. These notes were afterwards arranged and expanded by Guthrie, the historian, then in the employment of Cave, and presented to the public, monthly, in the Gentleman’s Magazine. They first appeared in July, 1736 [Footnote: Gent. Mag. vol. vi.], and were perused with the greatest eagerness. But it was soon intimated to Cave, that the speaker was offended with this freedom, which he regarded in the light of a breach of privilege, and would subject Cave, unless he desisted, to parliamentary censure, or perhaps punishment. To escape this, and likewise to avoid an abridgment of his magazine, Cave had recourse to the following artifice. He opened his magazine for June, 1738, with an article entitled, “Debates in the senate of Magna Lilliputia;” in which he artfully deplores the prohibition that forbids him to present his readers with the consultations of their own representatives, and expresses a hope that they will accept, as a substitute, those of that country which Gulliver had so lately rendered illustrious, and which untimely death had prevented that enterprising traveller from publishing himself. Under this fiction he continued to publish the debates of the British parliament, hiding the names of persons and places by the transposition of letters, in the way of anagram. These he contrived to explain to his readers, by annexing to his volume for 1738, feigned proposals for printing a work, to be called Anagrammata Rediviva. This list, and others from different years, we give in the present edition, though we have rejected the barbarous jargon from the speeches themselves. A contemporary publication, the LONDON MAGAZINE, feigned to give the debates of the Roman senate, and adapted Roman titles to the several speakers. This expedient, as well as Cave’s contrivance, sufficed to protect its ingenious authors from parliamentary resentment; as the resolution of the commons was never enforced.
