of Forth, and began our
journey; in the passage we observed an island, which I persuaded my
companions to survey. We found it a rock somewhat troublesome to climb,
about a mile long, and half a mile broad; in the middle were the ruins
of an old fort, which had, on one of the stones,--"Maria Re. 1564." It
had been only a blockhouse, one story high. I measured two apartments,
of which the walls were entire, and found them twenty-seven feet long,
and twenty-three broad. The rock had some grass and many thistles; both
cows and sheep were grazing. There was a spring of water. The name is
Inchkeith. Look on your maps. This visit took about an hour. We pleased
ourselves with being in a country all our own, and then went back to the
boat, and landed at Kinghorn, a mean town; and, travelling through
Kirkaldie, a very long town, meanly built, and Cowpar, which I could not
see, because it was night, we came late to St. Andrew's, the most
ancient of the Scotch universities, and once the see of the primate of
Scotland. The inn was full; but lodgings were provided for us at the
house of the professor of rhetorick, a man of elegant manners, who
showed us, in the morning, the poor remains of a stately cathedral,
demolished in Knox's reformation, and now only to be imagined, by
tracing its foundation, and contemplating the little ruins that are
left. Here was once a religious house. Two of the vaults or cellars of
the sub-prior are even yet entire. In one of them lives an old woman,
who claims an hereditary residence in it, boasting that her husband was
the sixth tenant of this gloomy mansion, in a lineal descent, and
claims, by her marriage with this lord of the cavern, an alliance with
the Bruces. Mr. Boswell staid awhile to interrogate her, because he
understood her language; she told him, that she and her cat lived
together; that she had two sons somewhere, who might, perhaps, be dead;
that, when there were quality in the town, notice was taken of her, and
that now she was neglected, but did not trouble them. Her habitation
contained all that she had; her turf, for fire, was laid in one place,
and her balls of coal-dust in another, but her bed seemed to be clean.
Boswell asked her, if she never heard any noises; but she could tell him
of nothing supernatural, though she often wandered in the night among
the graves and ruins; only she had, sometimes, notice, by dreams, of the
death of her relations. We then viewed the remains of a cas