The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by James Boswell

First published: 1785

Type of work: Diary

Principal personages

• James Boswell, the author, a young Scottish lawyer
• Samuel Johnson, his aging friend, the great essayist, biographer, poet, and critic
• Lord Auchinleck, Boswell’s father, a noted Scottish judge

The Work:

In August, 1773, James Boswell finally succeeded in persuading his distinguished friend Samuel Johnson to accompany him on a tour of his native Scotland, a country for which the learned Dr. Johnson’s scorn was legendary. Boswell kept a detailed journal for most of their journey together, and he published it, in a version edited and revised with the help of the Shakespearean scholar, Edmund Malone, in 1785, as a companion volume to Johnson’s own account, AJourney to the Western Islands of Scotland, that had appeared in 1775. Boswell’s original journal was discovered with many of his other private papers, giving the modern reader the opportunity to examine a considerably franker account than the one that was first issued to the public.

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides is a fascinating travelogue, an unusually full record of life in the Scottish highlands and on the remote islands of the Hebrides, a character sketch of Johnson, and, like Boswell’s other diaries, a mirror of his personal idiosyncrasies. Boswell seems especially anxious to show the respect and the deference with which his friend was greeted by his countrymen; he wanted to prove to Johnson and to the world that the Scots were indeed capable of being scholars and gentlemen, closely in touch with the world of learning, and, being a Scot himself, he naturally felt pride in having the privilege of introducing so great a figure to the professors and noblemen of his homeland.

Perhaps the greatest appeal of Boswell’s account lies in the absolute naturalness of style and content. Discussion of the quality of the food and of the beds at every inn along the way is interspersed with Johnson’s comments on whatever volumes of prayers, sermons, or poems he was able to procure and with accounts of long conversations between the scholar and many of his hosts on religion, philosophy, politics, and literature. As the trip went on, Boswell tended to fall farther and farther behind in his account, and throughout the journal he casually tossed in collections of Johnsoniana after having forgotten the specific occasions of many of the doctor’s comments. He chose, too, to stop his narrative at intervals to give geographical and historical details.

Boswell is brutally frank, in his unpublished account, about the character of some of their hosts. He is relatively sympathetic when treating the weakness of Donald MacLeod, a young kinsman of the chief of the MacLeod clan of Dunvegan, on the Isle of Skye, who took their money to town to have it changed and squandered a portion of it on his own refreshment, much to his later chagrin and shame. The arrogance and lack of hospitality of Sir Alexander Macdonald, whose manners seemed to Boswell entirely out of keeping with his station in life, are treated much more harshly. Boswell gives a particularly amusing account of their visit to the duke and duchess of Argyll at Inverary. The duchess refused so much as to acknowledge his presence, because he had opposed her in a celebrated lawsuit, but she and her husband welcomed Johnson cordially.

Johnson appears throughout the journal as a man remarkably willing to adapt to circumstances, however uncomfortable they might be; it was Boswell, many years his junior, who was most disturbed by the lack of clean bedding and who was almost overcome by fright when they ran into a storm as they traveled from one island to another in a small boat. Dr. Johnson teased the young daughters of his hosts, flattered and complimented the elderly ladies, and, for the most part, restrained himself from severely attacking those with whose views he differed violently, especially on such questions as the once burning issue of the authenticity of James MacPherson’s Ossian poems, published, Johnson thought fraudulently, as translations from the Gaelic.

One of the most delightful episodes in the journal is Boswell’s description of Johnson’s meeting with Boswell’s father, Lord Auchinleck, a staunch Whig and Presbyterian. Johnson was an equally dogmatic Tory, whose sympathies with the Jacobite cause led him to inquire with great interest about the activities of “Bonny Prince Charlie” when he escaped to Skye after the disastrous battle of Culloden; he was so loyal a member of the Church of England that he read his own prayers throughout most of his trip rather than participate in Presbyterian services. Boswell cautioned Johnson to avoid the controversial topics of politics and religion whenever possible, and the encounter of the two men the young lawyer revered most was, for a time, smooth. However, the “collision,” as Boswell calls it, finally came. A medal with Oliver Cromwell’s portrait on it was the cause, introducing the subject of Charles I and the Tories, with the inevitable results. Boswell discreetly withholds the details of the argument, but he does mention that afterward his father dubbed Johnson “Ursa Major,” the great bear. In spite of their altercation, however, the two aging gentlemen apparently parted on terms of mutual respect, if not of friendship, and Boswell appears well-satisfied at having brought them together.

Boswell’s portrait of himself in this account is less revealing than that in Boswell’s London Journal 1762-1763 (1950); age had apparently curtailed some of his frankness and unselfconsciousness, but even here, in the original diary, although not in the published version, he describes in some detail his spiritual experiences in several of the old ruins he visited, and he records with chagrin how quickly his resolutions for increased temperance and self-control were overcome by the offer of a fresh bowl of punch. His concern for his wife, whom he left at home in Edinburgh, runs throughout his pages, and he had what proved to be false premonitions of disasters befalling her and their children. His uxoriousness did not, however, curtail his roving eye for the various young ladies he and Johnson met on their travels.

Among the most interesting sections of the book for the modern reader are those that describe in detail the daily life of the heads of the various clans that inhabited the western islands. The civilized manners of the MacLeods of Raasay had made their daughters welcome at fashionable gatherings in Edinburgh and London, yet the lords and their young heirs were acquainted with the most menial tasks involved with the running of their estates. The wide reading of many of the Highlanders, especially of the clergymen, and the education of the young people also surprised the travelers, and Johnson on one occasion presented an arithmetic book to a bright young girl with whose family he lodged. However, the primitiveness of many of the tenants of the great landholders is presented in sharp contrast to the sophistication of their masters.

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, like Boswell’s other biographical and autobiographical writings, has had and will continue to have great appeal for readers, primarily for the spirit of life that infuses every page. Servants, obscure clergymen, elderly Scotswomen, and youthful lords come to life vividly as do Boswell and Johnson themselves, and the naturalness of Boswell’s style makes his work contemporary and fascinating throughout.

Bibliography

Bate, W. Jackson. Samuel Johnson. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Offers an insightful comparison between Johnson’s travel account and Boswell’s journal. Explains how Boswell’s writings constitute a biographical memoir and record of conversation rather than a straightforward narration of events.

Brady, Frank. James Boswell, the Later Years: 1769-1795. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. Brady’s coverage of Boswell’s journal is annotated, indexed, thoroughly researched, and enthusiastically written. Examines Boswell’s moral and psychological character, with fascinating accounts of his morbid curiosity.

Bronson, B. H. “Johnson, Traveling Companion, in Fancy and Fact.” In Johnson and His Age, edited by James Engell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. Reviews the differences between the published version and the actual journal that Boswell kept, which appeared in 1936. Underscores Boswell’s efforts to use the journal as a rehearsal for The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., which was published in 1791.

Delaney, Frank. A Walk to the Western Isles: After Boswell and Johnson. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. A chronicle of Delaney’s journey that retraced the 1773 Scotland trip taken by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson. Contains beautiful photographs and illustrations. Re-creates the time, place, and intellectual environment in which the two scholars cemented their friendship.

LaScelles, Mary. Notions and Facts: Johnson and Boswell on Their Travels. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1972. Re-creates Boswell’s attempts to capture Johnson’s response to unaccustomed circumstances. Reviews the circle of friends and contacts who arranged the tour.

Pittock, Murray. James Boswell. Aberdeen, Scotland: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2007. A detailed examination of Boswell’s published and unpublished works. Pittock demonstrates how Boswell deliberately wrote ambiguously about himself and the major events of his time; he discusses how Boswell’s writing was influenced by his sympathies with Catholicism, Scotland, and Jacobitism.

Rogers, Pat. Johnson and Boswell: The Transit of Caledonia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Focuses on both Boswell and Johnson’s accounts of their trip to the Hebrides. Rogers examines their journey from the perspective of eighteenth century travel writing and places their accounts of the trip within an intellectual, cultural, and literary context.

Turnbull, Gordon. “Generous Attachment: The Politics of Biography in the Tour of the Hebrides.” In Modern Critical Views: Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Examines the political risks that Boswell took in exposing Scotland to Samuel Johnson and in exposing Samuel Johnson to Scotland.