'
Upon the table in our room I found in the morning a slip of paper, on
which Dr. Johnson had written with his pencil these words,
'Quantum cedat virtutibus aurum[548].'
What he meant by writing them I could not tell[549]. He had caught cold
a day or two ago, and the rain yesterday having made it worse, he was
become very deaf. At breakfast he said, he would have given a good deal
rather than not have lain in that bed. I owned he was the lucky man; and
observed, that without doubt it had been contrived between Mrs.
Macdonald and him. She seemed to acquiesce; adding, 'You know young
_bucks_ are always favourites of the ladies.' He spoke of Prince Charles
being here, and asked Mrs. Macdonald, '_Who_ was with him? We were told,
madam, in England, there was one Miss Flora Macdonald with him.' She
said, 'they were very right;' and perceiving Dr. Johnson's curiosity,
though he had delicacy enough not to question her, very obligingly
entertained him with a recital of the particulars which she herself knew
of that escape, which does so much honour to the humanity, fidelity, and
generosity of the Highlanders. Dr. Johnson listened to her with placid
attention, and said, 'All this should be written down.'
From what she told us, and from what I was told by others personally
concerned, and from a paper of information which Rasay was so good as to
send me, at my desire, I have compiled the following abstract, which, as
it contains some curious anecdotes, will, I imagine, not be
uninteresting to my readers, and even, perhaps, be of some use to future
historians.
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