In this situation, we were somewhat
disconcerted by being told that we should have no dinner till late in
the evening, but should have tea in the mean time. Dr. Johnson opposed
this arrangement; but they persisted, and he took the tea very readily.
He said to me afterwards, 'You must consider, Sir, a dinner here is a
matter of great consequence. It is a thing to be first planned, and then
executed. I suppose the mutton was brought some miles off, from some
place where they knew there was a sheep killed.'
Talking of the good people with whom we were, he said, 'Life has not got
at all forward by a generation in M'Sweyn's family; for the son is
exactly formed upon the father. What the father says, the son says; and
what the father looks, the son looks.'
There being little conversation to-night, I must endeavour to recollect
what I may have omitted on former occasions. When I boasted, at Rasay,
of my independency of spirit, and that I could not be bribed, he said,
'Yes, you may be bribed by flattery.' At the Reverend Mr. M'Lean's, Dr.
Johnson asked him, if the people of Col had any superstitions. He said,
'No.' The cutting peats at the increase of the moon was mentioned as
one; but he would not allow it, saying, it was not a superstition, but a
whim. Dr. Johnson would not admit the distinction. There were many
superstitions, he maintained, not connected with religion; and this was
one of them[825].
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