with the ruins of antiquity as places of interest. The number of visitors to Vesuvius, for example, increased dramatically in the 1760s and 1770s, there no longer to gaze dutifully downwards at the domestic details of antiquity – pondering the use of this spigot or that bowl in the daily round of a Roman housewife – but to rubberneck in helpless astonishment at the mountain itself. Some chose to get even closer to the peaks, and to climb them. In Chamonix, the town nestled beneath the needles and glaciers of Mont Blanc, guiding became a profitable business, as locals dragged foreigners keen for a sublime fix up to the viewing promontory on the Montanvert. And in Britain, seekers of the Sublime and of its slightly tamer cousin, the Picturesque, were responsible for opening up the mountainous areas of the Lake District, North Wales and Scotland. The Caledonian Tour, which took in the coastal beauty spots and inland wildernesses of Scotland, became particularly popular. Among the best-known of the first generation of Caledonian tourists was Dr Samuel Johnson, who undertook a journey to ‘the Western Isles of Scotland’ in 1773.
Six feet tall and some sixteen stone heavy, the formidable body of Dr Johnson was itself almost a sublime presence. When he arrivedat Buchan, on the north-east coast of Scotland, Johnson had already visited Fingal’s Cave on the Isle of Staffa and been rowed in calm seas through its famous Gothic archways. Now he and Boswell had come across country to see the Buller of Buchan, another renowned rock-formation. Johnson had wanted to go to China to see the Great Wall, so Scotland was always going to be a poor substitute. Nevertheless, he was impressed by the Buller. He described it thus:
It is a rock perpendicularly tubulated, united on one side with a high shore, and the other rising steep to a great height, above the main sea. The top is open, from which may be seen a dark gulf of water which flows into the cavity, through a breach made in the lower part of the inclosing rock. It has the appearance of a vast well bordered with a wall.
Many of those who came to visit the Buller were content to view it from the security of the main cliff-edge. From there they could safely watch the sea boiling and sucking in the breach, and watch the fulmars which nested on the seawards cliff glide to and fro on their hunting forays.
Some among the bolder visitors, however, were tempted to walk out along the apex of the arch of rock. There was no real danger. True, in places the ridge narrowed to only two or three feet wide, and the ground underfoot was tussocky, uneven and crumbling near its edges. And when you looked down at your feet you could see the sea moving below the arch, so that it felt as though the arch itself was swaying liquidly back and forth, liable to pitch you to a watery death … But then that was the point of doing the walk in the first place; to deceive your mind into imagining its own annihilation. The ridge of the Buller, in other words, was the ideal place to experience the Sublime.
The Buller of Buchan.
To the dismay of Boswell, Johnson insisted that they make the crossing. Boswell shuffled slowly across, and declared it ‘horrid to move along’. Dr Johnson, however, took it – like so many things in life – in his considerable stride, walking along without hesitation or stutter. For such a cumbrous man, he was remarkably agile: on the ground, as on the page, he was sure of his step. Afterwards, Johnson described the traverse in level-headed terms:
The edge of the Buller is not wide and to those that walk round, appears very narrow. He that ventures to look downward sees, that if his foot should slip, he must fall from his dreadful elevation upon stones on one side, or into water on the other. But terrour without danger is only one of the sports of fancy, a voluntary agitation of the mind that is permitted no longer than it pleases.
The significant difference between Johnson and
Six feet tall and some sixteen stone heavy, the formidable body of Dr Johnson was itself almost a sublime presence. When he arrivedat Buchan, on the north-east coast of Scotland, Johnson had already visited Fingal’s Cave on the Isle of Staffa and been rowed in calm seas through its famous Gothic archways. Now he and Boswell had come across country to see the Buller of Buchan, another renowned rock-formation. Johnson had wanted to go to China to see the Great Wall, so Scotland was always going to be a poor substitute. Nevertheless, he was impressed by the Buller. He described it thus:
It is a rock perpendicularly tubulated, united on one side with a high shore, and the other rising steep to a great height, above the main sea. The top is open, from which may be seen a dark gulf of water which flows into the cavity, through a breach made in the lower part of the inclosing rock. It has the appearance of a vast well bordered with a wall.
Many of those who came to visit the Buller were content to view it from the security of the main cliff-edge. From there they could safely watch the sea boiling and sucking in the breach, and watch the fulmars which nested on the seawards cliff glide to and fro on their hunting forays.
Some among the bolder visitors, however, were tempted to walk out along the apex of the arch of rock. There was no real danger. True, in places the ridge narrowed to only two or three feet wide, and the ground underfoot was tussocky, uneven and crumbling near its edges. And when you looked down at your feet you could see the sea moving below the arch, so that it felt as though the arch itself was swaying liquidly back and forth, liable to pitch you to a watery death … But then that was the point of doing the walk in the first place; to deceive your mind into imagining its own annihilation. The ridge of the Buller, in other words, was the ideal place to experience the Sublime.
The Buller of Buchan.
To the dismay of Boswell, Johnson insisted that they make the crossing. Boswell shuffled slowly across, and declared it ‘horrid to move along’. Dr Johnson, however, took it – like so many things in life – in his considerable stride, walking along without hesitation or stutter. For such a cumbrous man, he was remarkably agile: on the ground, as on the page, he was sure of his step. Afterwards, Johnson described the traverse in level-headed terms:
The edge of the Buller is not wide and to those that walk round, appears very narrow. He that ventures to look downward sees, that if his foot should slip, he must fall from his dreadful elevation upon stones on one side, or into water on the other. But terrour without danger is only one of the sports of fancy, a voluntary agitation of the mind that is permitted no longer than it pleases.
The significant difference between Johnson and
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