If a man comes to look for fishes, you
cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls.' 'But,' said Colonel
M'Leod, 'he mentions the unreasonable rise of rents in the Highlands,
and says, "the gentlemen are for emptying the bag, without filling
it[614];" for that is the phrase he uses. Why does he not tell how to
fill it?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no end of negative criticism. He tells
what he observes, and as much as he chooses. If he tells what is not
true, you may find fault with him; but, though he tells that the land is
not well cultivated, he is not obliged to tell how it may be well
cultivated. If I tell that many of the Highlanders go bare-footed, I am
not obliged to tell how they may get shoes. Pennant tells a fact. He
need go no farther, except he pleases. He exhausts nothing; and no
subject whatever has yet been exhausted. But Pennant has surely told a
great deal. Here is a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is
not seven.' Notwithstanding this eloquent _Oratio pro Pennantio_, which
they who have read this gentleman's _Tours_, and recollect the _Savage_
and the _Shopkeeper_ at _Monboddo_[615], will probably impute to the
spirit of contradiction, I still think that he had better have given
more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number
of imperfect accounts.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259