me more
rationally, that 'it did not strike _him_ as any thing extraordinary;
because he knew, here was a large sum of money expended in building a
fort; here was a regiment. If there had been less than what we found, it
would have surprised him.' _He_ looked coolly and deliberately through
all the gradations: my warm imagination jumped from the barren sands to
the splendid dinner and brilliant company, to borrow the expression of
an absurd poet,

'Without ands or ifs,
I leapt from off the sands upon the cliffs.'

The whole scene gave me a strong impression of the power and excellence
of human art.

We left the fort between six and seven o'clock: Sir Eyre Coote, Colonel
Pennington, and several more accompanied us down stairs, and saw us into
our chaise. There could not be greater attention paid to any visitors.
Sir Eyre spoke of the hardships which Dr. Johnson had before him.
BOSWELL. 'Considering what he has said of us, we must make him feel
something rough in Scotland.' Sir Eyre said to him, 'You must change
your name, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'Ay, to Dr. M'Gregor[403].' We got safely to
Inverness, and put up at Mackenzie's inn. Mr. Keith, the collector of
Excise here, my old acquaintance at Ayr, who had seen us at the Fort,
visited us in the evening, and engaged us to dine with him next day,
promising to breakfast with us, and take us to the English chapel; so
that we were at once commodiously arranged.

Not finding a letter here that I expected, I felt a momentary impatience
to be at home. Transient clouds darkened my imagination, and in those
clouds I saw events from which I shrunk; but a sentence or two of the
_Rambler's_ conversation gave me firmness, and I considered that I was
upon an expedition for which I had wished for years, and the
recollection of which would be a treasure to me for life.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 29.

Mr. Keith breakfasted with us. Dr. Johnson expatiated rather too
strongly upon the benefits derived to Scotland from the Union[404], and
the bad state of our people before it. I am entertained with his copious
exaggeration upon that subject; but I am uneasy when people are by, who
do not know him as well as I do, and may be apt to think him
narrow-minded[405]. I therefore diverted the subject.

The English chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. The
altar was a bare fir table, with a coarse stool for kneeling on, covered
with a piece of thick sail-cloth