The story is in the Chartulary of Elgin.' BOSWELL. The
cathedral was rebuilt in 1407-20, but the lead was stripped from the
roof by the Regent Murray, and the building went to ruin. Murray's
_Handbook_, ed. 1867, p. 303. 'There is,' writes Johnson (_Works_, ix.
20), 'still extant in the books of the council an order ... directing
that the lead, which covers the two cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen,
shall be taken away, and converted into money for the support of the
army.... The two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be
sold in Holland. I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of
sacrilege was lost at sea.' On this Horace Walpole remarks (_Letters_,
vii. 484):--'I confess I have not quite so heinous an idea of sacrilege
as Dr. Johnson. Of all kinds of robbery, that appears to me the lightest
species which injures nobody. Dr. Johnson is so pious that in his
journey to your country he flatters himself that all his readers will
join him in enjoying the destruction of two Dutch crews, who were
swallowed up by the ocean after they had robbed a church.'
[354] I am not sure whether the Duke was at home. But, not having the
honour of being much known to his grace, I could not have presumed to
enter his castle, though to introduce even so celebrated a stranger. We
were at any rate in a hurry to get forward to the wildness which we came
to see.
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