'
P. CUNNINGHAM.
[923] He is described by Walpole in his _Letters_, viii. 5.
[924] 'The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go,
though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts which poured
down the hills on one side, and fell into one general channel, that ran
with great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy,
and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the
cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the
rough musick of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.'
Johnson's _Works_, ix. 155. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'All the rougher
powers of nature except thunder were in motion, but there was no danger.
I should have been sorry to have missed any of the inconveniencies, to
have had more light or less rain, for their co-operation crowded the
scene and filled the mind.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 177.
[925] I never tasted whiskey except once for experiment at the inn in
Inverary, when I thought it preferable to any English malt brandy. It
was strong, but not pungent, and was free from the empyreumatick taste
or smell. What was the process I had no opportunity of inquiring, nor do
I wish to improve the art of making poison pleasant.' Johnson's _Works_,
ix. 52. Smollett, medical man though he was, looked upon whisky as
anything but poison.
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