of GOD.

We came to Nairn to breakfast. Though a county town and a royal burgh,
it is a miserable place. Over the room where we sat, a girl was spinning
wool with a great wheel, and singing an Erse song[367]: 'I'll warrant
you, (said Dr. Johnson.) one of the songs of Ossian.' He then repeated
these lines:---

'Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound.
All at her work the village maiden sings;
Nor while she turns the giddy wheel around,
Revolves the sad vicissitude of things[368].'

I thought I had heard these lines before. JOHNSON. 'I fancy not, Sir;
for they are in a detached poem, the name of which I do not remember,
written by one Giffard, a parson.'

I expected Mr. Kenneth M'Aulay[369], the minister of Calder, who
published the history of St. Kilda[370], a book which Dr. Johnson liked,
would have met us here, as I had written to him from Aberdeen. But I
received a letter from him, telling me that he could not leave home, as
he was to administer the sacrament the following Sunday, and earnestly
requesting to see us at his manse. 'We'll go,' said Dr. Johnson; which
we accordingly did. Mrs. M'Aulay received us, and told us her husband
was in the church distributing tokens[371]. We arrived between twelve
and one o'clock, and it was near three before he came to us.

Dr. Johnson thanked him for his book, and said 'it was a very pretty
piece of topography.' M'Aulay did not seem much to mind the compliment.
From his conversation, Dr. Johnson was persuaded that he had not written
the book which goes under his name. I myself always suspected so; and I
have been told it was written by the learned Dr. John M'Pherson of
Sky[372], from the materials collected by M'Aulay. Dr. Johnson said
privately to me, 'There is a combination in it of which M'Aulay is not
capable[373].' However, he was exceedingly hospitable; and, as he
obligingly promised us a route for our Tour through the Western Isles,
we agreed to stay with him all night.

After dinner, we walked to the old castle of Calder (pronounced Cawder),
the Thane of Cawdor's seat. I was sorry that my friend, this 'prosperous
gentleman[374],' was not there. The old tower must be of great
antiquity[375]. There is a draw-bridge--what has been a moat,--and an
ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden
pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the
walls have been built round it. The thickness of the w