family, to preserve the characters and transactions of
successive generations.

After dinner I started the subject of the temple of ANAITIS. Mr. M'Queen
had laid stress on the name given to the place by the country
people,--_Ainnit_; and added, 'I knew not what to make of this piece of
antiquity, till I met with the _Anaitidis delubrum_ in Lydia, mentioned
by Pausanias and the elder Pliny.' Dr. Johnson, with his usual
acuteness, examined Mr. M'Queen as to the meaning of the word _Ainnit_,
in Erse; and it proved to be a _water-place_, or a place near water,
'which,' said Mr. M'Queen, 'agrees with all the descriptions of the
temples of that goddess, which were situated near rivers, that there
might be water to wash the statue.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, the argument
from the name is gone. The name is exhausted by what we see. We have no
occasion to go to a distance for what we can pick up under our feet. Had
it been an accidental name, the similarity between it and Anaitis might
have had something in it; but it turns out to be a mere physiological
name.' Macleod said, Mr. M'Queen's knowledge of etymology had destroyed
his conjecture. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; Mr. M'Queen is like the eagle
mentioned by Waller, who was shot with an arrow feather'd from his own
wing[612].' Mr. M'Queen would not, however, give up his conjecture.
JOHNSON. 'You have one possibility for you, and all possibilities
against you. It is possible it may be the temple of Anaitis. But it is
also possible that it may be a fortification; or it may be a place of
Christian worship, as the first Christians often chose remote and wild
places, to make an impression on the mind; or, if it was a heathen
temple, it may have been built near a river, for the purpose of
lustration; and there is such a multitude of divinities, to whom it may
have been dedicated, that the chance of its being a temple of _Anaitis_
is hardly any thing. It is like throwing a grain of sand upon the
sea-shore to-day, and thinking you may find it to-morrow. No, Sir, this
temple, like many an ill-built edifice, tumbles down before it is roofed
in.' In his triumph over the reverend antiquarian, he indulged himself
in a _conceit_; for, some vestige of the _altar_ of the goddess being
much insisted on in support of the hypothesis, he said, 'Mr. M'Queen is
fighting _pro_ aris _et focis'_.

It was wonderful how well time passed in a remote castle, and in dreary
weather. After supper, we talked of Pennant. I