As we walked up from the shore, Dr. Johnson's heart was cheered by the
sight of a road marked with cart-wheels, as on the main land; a thing
which we had not seen for a long time. It gave us a pleasure similar to
that which a traveller feels, when, whilst wandering on what he fears is
a desert island, he perceives the print of human feet. Military men
acquire excellent habits of having all conveniences about them. Sir
Allan M'Lean, who had been long in the army, and had now a lease of the
island, had formed a commodious habitation, though it consisted but of a
few small buildings, only one story high[864]. He had, in his little
apartments, more things than I could enumerate in a page or two.
Among other agreeable circumstances, it was not the least, to find here
a parcel of the _Caledonian Mercury_, published since we left Edinburgh;
which I read with that pleasure which every man feels who has been for
some time secluded from the animated scenes of the busy world.
Dr. Johnson found books here. He bade me buy Bishop Gastrell's
_Christian Institutes_[865], which was lying in the room. He said, 'I do
not like to read any thing on a Sunday, but what is theological; not
that I would scrupulously refuse to look at any thing which a friend
should shew me in a newspaper; but in general, I would read only what is
theological.
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