Chapter 76: 744-748
Contents
Page 744
Dr. JohnsonSamuel Johnson, see page 351.
Boswell
See page 718.
Trip to the Hebrides
On 6 August 1773, eleven years after first meeting Boswell, Johnson set out to visit his friend in Scotland, to begin "a journey to the western islands of Scotland", as Johnson's 1775 account of their travels would put it. The work was intended to discuss the social problems and struggles that affected the Scottish people, but it also praised many of the unique facets of Scottish society, such as a school in Edinburgh for the deaf and mute. Also, Johnson used the work to enter into the dispute over the authenticity of James Macpherson's Ossian poems, claiming they could not have been translations of ancient Scottish literature on the grounds that "in those times nothing had been written in the Earse [i.e. Gaelic] language". There were heated exchanges between the two, and according to one of Johnson's letters, MacPherson threatened physical violence. Boswell's account, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1786), was a preliminary attempt at a biography before his Life of Johnson. Included were various quotes and descriptions of events, including anecdotes such as Johnson swinging around a broadsword while wearing Scottish garb, or dancing a Highland jig. From WIKI
Cham
An autocrat or dominant critic, especially Samuel Johnson. From WIKI
