This August marks 250 years since the start of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell’s Journey to the Hebrides.
James Boswell always wanted to show Scotland, his homeland, to his friend Samuel Johnson. Johnson recalled reading Martin Martin’s 1703 ‘A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland’ when he was a child, on the recommendation of his father, and being much pleased with it. It was just a matter of getting Johnson out of London. Boswell said: “I knew if he were once launched from the metropolis he would go forward very well”
At last Johnson agreed to take a grand tour of north-east and north-west Scotland as well as some islands of the inner Hebrides.
Both Johnson and Boswell wrote accounts of their travels which were later published: Johnson’s in 1775, and Boswell’s in 1785, after the death of Johnson. Boswell’s book was based on the notes he made along the way, whereas Johnson relied on his memory of the journey to write his.
In this blog post we take the tour with the two friends throughout the first month of their trip and see how they portrayed each day.
Saturday 14th August 1773 Edinburgh
Boswell – “ I received a note from him, that he was arrived at Boyd’s Inn at the head of Canongate. I went to him directly … Mr Johnson and I walked arm-in-arm up the High Street, to my house in James’s Court”
Wednesday 18th August Edinburgh, Inch Keith, St. Andrews
Boswell – “On this day we set out from Edinburgh”
Johnson – “ I had desired to visit the Hebrides or Western Isles 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”
Friday 20th August, St Andrews, Aberbrothick ( Arbroath) Montrose
Boswell – “About eleven at night we arrived at Montrose. We found but a sorry inn, where I saw another waiter put a lump of sugar with his fingers into Dr Johnson’s lemonade, for which he called him ‘Rascal!’”
Johnson – “From the banks of the Tweed to St Andrews I had never seen a single tree… The oak and the thorn is here equally a stranger, and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness… A tree is a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice”
Saturday 21st August
Boswell – “We had a tedious driving this afternoon, and were a good deal drowsy. Last night I was afraid Mr Johnson was beginning to faint in his resolution, for he said, If we must ride much, we shall not go, and there’s an end on it. Today when he talked of Skye with spirit, I said ‘Why sir, you was beginning to despond yesterday. You’re a delicate Londoner, you’re a macaroni! You can’t ride’. Johnson replied “ Sir I shall ride better than you. I was only afraid I shall not find a horse able to carry me”. I hoped then there would be no fear of fulfilling our wild tour.
Tuesday 24th August 1773 Aberdeen, Slains Castle
B “ We set out about eight in the morning, and breakfasted at Ellon. The landlady said to me’, Is this not the great Doctor that is going throughout the country? Ay said she, we heard of him’”
Tuesday 31st August Glenmoriston
Boswell – “ The room had some deals laid as a kind of ceiling. There were two beds in the room. A woman’s gown was hung on a rope to make a curtain of separation between them. We had much hesitation whether to undress or lie down with our clothes on”
With thanks to Museum volunteer Nicola Young for this month’s post. The Birthplace Museum will be commemorating the Tour with a changing display of the ‘Picturesque Beauties of Boswell’ by Thomas Rowlandson and Samuel Collings, following their tour from August until the end of November 2023.