'
_Ante_, iii. 416.
[504] 'It is not only in Rasay that the chapel is unroofed and useless;
through the few islands which we visited we neither saw nor heard of any
house of prayer, except in Sky, that was not in ruins. The malignant
influence of Calvinism has blasted ceremony and decency together... It
has been for many years popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the
Romish clergy; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches we
may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the
fervid activity of those who suffer them to fall.' Johnson's _Works_,
ix. 61. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'By the active zeal of Protestant
devotion almost all the chapels have sunk into ruin.' _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 152.
[505] 'Not many years ago,' writes Johnson, 'the late Laird led out one
hundred men upon a military expedition.' _Works_, ix. 59. What the
expedition was he is careful not to state.
[506] 'I considered this rugged ascent as the consequence of a form of
life inured to hardships, and therefore not studious of nice
accommodations. But I know not whether for many ages it was not
considered as a part of military policy to keep the country not easily
accessible. The rocks are natural fortifications.' Johnson's _Works_,
ix. p. 54.
[507] See _post_ Sept. 17.
[508] In Sky a price was set 'upon the heads of foxes, which, as the
number was diminished, has been gradually raised from three shillings
and sixpence to a guinea, a sum so great in this part of the world,
that, in a short time, Sky may be as free from foxes as England from
wolves.
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