table plentifully furnished, and here for the first time they had a specimen of the joyous social manners of the inhabitants of the Highlands." Books, too, were not wanting, both Latin and English; among them was a copy of the abridgment of Johnson's Dictionary. He might have said here, as four years later with some eagerness he said at Lord Scarsdale's, when he discovered the same book in his lordship's dressing-room, "Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?" Here, too, he wrote that Latin Ode to Mrs. Thrale, which so caught Sir Walter Scott's imagination, that when he first set foot on Skye, it was the thing which first came into his thoughts. And here on their return after a lapse of nearly three weeks, Boswell got so tipsy and so piously penitent next day. He had not gone to bed till nearly five o'clock on a Sunday morning, by which time four bowls of punch had been finished.
"I awaked at noon," he records, "with a severe headache. I was much vexed that I should have been guilty of such a riot, and afraid of a reproof from Dr. Johnson. I thought it very inconsistent with that conduct which I ought to maintain, while the companion of the Rambler. About one he came into my room, and accosted me, 'What, drunk yet?' His tone of voice was not that of severe upbraiding; so I was relieved a little. 'Sir,' said I, 'they kept me up.' He answered, 'No, you kept them up, you drunken dog.' This he said with good-humoured English pleasantry. Soon afterwards, Corrichatachin, Col, and other friends, assembled round my bed. Corri had a brandy-bottle and glass with him, and insisted I should take a dram. 'Ay,' said Dr. Johnson, 'fill him drunk again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and sculk to bed, and let his friends have no sport.' Finding him thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get up, he very good-naturedly said, 'You need be in no such hurry now.' I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I found an effectual cure for my headache. When I rose, I went into Dr. Johnson's room, and taking up Mrs. M'Kinnon's Prayer-book, I opened it at the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, in the epistle for which I read, 'And be not drunk with wine, wherein there is excess.' Some would have taken this as a divine interposition."
Before the afternoon was over, by the help of good cheer and good society, he felt himself comfortable enough, and his piety was drowned in philosophy.
"I then thought," he says, "that my last night's riot was no more than such a social excess as may happen without much moral blame; and recollected that some physicians maintained, that a fever produced by it was, upon the whole, good for health."
The Highlanders were more seasoned drinkers than he was, for the following night they had another drinking-bout.
