which
no personal injury is the consequence, and which flatters the author with
his own ingenuity. The Scots have something to plead for their easy
reception of an improbable fiction; they are seduced by their fondness
for their supposed ancestors. A Scotchman must be a very sturdy
moralist, who does not love Scotland better than truth: he will always
love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will
not be very diligent to detect it. Neither ought the English to be much
influenced by Scotch authority; for of the past and present state of the
whole Earse nation, the Lowlanders are at least as ignorant as ourselves.
To be ignorant is painful; but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by
the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion.

But this is the age, in which those who could not read, have been
supposed to write; in which the giants of antiquated romance have been
exhibited as realities. If we know little of the ancient Highlanders,
let us not fill the vacuity with Ossian. If we had not searched the
Magellanick regions, let us however forbear to people them with Patagons.

Having waited some days at Armidel, we were flattered at last with a wind
that promised to convey us to Mull. We went on board a boat that was
taking in kelp, and left the Isle of Sky behind us. We were doomed to
experience, like others, the danger of trusting to the wind, which blew
against us, in a short time, with such violence, that we, being no
seasoned sailors, were willing to call it a tempest. I was sea-sick and
lay down. Mr. Boswell kept the deck. The master knew not well whither
to go; and our difficulties might perhaps have filled a very pathetick
page, had not Mr. Maclean of Col, who, with every other qualification
which insular life requires, is a very active and skilful mariner,
piloted us safe into his own harbour.

COL

In the morning we found ourselves under the Isle of Col, where we landed;
and passed the first day and night with Captain Maclean, a gentleman who
has lived some time in the East Indies; but having dethroned no Nabob, is
not too rich to settle in own country.

Next day the wind was fair, and we might have had an easy passage to
Mull; but having, contrarily to our own intention, landed upon a new
Island, we would not leave it wholly unexamined. We therefore suffered
the vessel to depart without us, and trusted the skies for another wind.

Mr. Maclean of Col, having a very num