1775. Ætat. 66. and I fhall diligently endeavour to gather for you any thing that I can find. "What does Becket mean by the Originals of Fingal and other poems of Offian, which he advertises to have lain in his fhop?" "YOU fent me a cafe to confider, in which I have no facts but what are against us, nor any principles on which to reafon. It is vain to try to write thus without materials. The fact seems to be against you, at least I cannot know nor fay any thing to the contrary. I am glad that you like the book fo well. I hear no more of Macpherson. I fhall long to know what Lord Hailes fays of it. Lend it him privately. I fhall fend the parcel as foon as I can. Make my compliments to Mrs. Bofwell. I am, Sir, &c. 66 January 28, 1775. SAM. JOHNSON." Mr. BOSWELL to Dr. JOHNSON. Edinburgh, Feb. 2, 1775. "AS to Macpherson, I am anxious to have from yourself a full and pointed account of what has paffed between you and him. It is confidently told here, that before your book came out he fent to you, to let you know that he understood you meant to deny the authenticity of Offian's Poems; that the originals were in his poffeffion; that you might have inspection of them, and might take the evidence of people skilled in the Erfe language; and that he hoped, after this fair offer, you would not be so uncandid as to affert that he had refused reasonable proof. That you paid no regard to his message, but published your strong attack upon him; that then he wrote a letter to you, in 1775 fuch terms as he thought fuited to one who had not acted as a man of veracity. You may believe it gives me believe it gives me pain to hear your conduct represented as Etat 66 unfavourable, while I can only deny what is faid, on the ground that your character refutes it, without having any information to oppofe. Let me, I beg it of you, be furnished with a fufficient anfwer to any calumny upon this occafion. "Lord Hailes writes to me, (for wę correfpond more than we talk together,) As to Fingal, I fee a controverfy arifing, and purpose to keep out of its way. There is no doubt that I might mention fome circumstances; but I do not choose to commit them to paper.' What his opinion is, I do not know. He fays, I am fingularly obliged to Dr. Johnson for his accurate and ufeful criticisms. Had he given fome strictures on the general plan of the work, it would have added much to his favours.' He is charmed with your verses on Inchkenneth, fays they are very elegant, but bids me tell you he doubts whether be according to the rubrick: but that is your concern; for, you know, he is a Prefbyterian." « SIR, To Dr. LAWRENCE'. February 7, 1775. "ONE of the Scotch phyficians is now profecuting a corporation that in fome publick inftrument have stiled him Doctor of Medicine instead of Phyfician. Bofwell defires, being advocate for the corporation, to know whether Doctor of Medicine is not a legitimate title, and whether it may be confidered as a difadvantageous diftinction. I am to write to-night, be pleased to tell me. I am, Sir, your most, &c. To JAMES BOSWELL, Efq. "MY DEAR BOSWELL, "SAM. JOHNSON." "I AM furprized that, knowing as you do the difpofition of your countrymen to tell lies in favour of each other, you can be at all affected by ↑ The learned and worthy Dr. Lawrence, whom Dr. Johnson refpected and loved as his physician and friend. 5 My friend has, in this letter, relied upon my teftimony with a confidence, of which the ground has escaped my recollection. any 1775. any reports that circulate among them. Macpherson never in his life offered Atat. 66. me the fight of any original or of any evidence of any kind, but thought only of intimidating me by noise and threats, till my last answer,—that I would not be deterred from detecting what I thought a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian,-put an end to our correfpondence. "The state of the queftion is this. He, and Dr. Blair, whom I confider as deceived, fay, that he copied the poem from old manufcripts. His copies, if he had them, and I believe him to have none, are nothing. Where are the manufcripts? They can be fhown if they exist, but they were never fhown. De non exiftentibus et non apparentibus, fays our law, eadem eft ratio. No man has a claim to credit upon his own word, when better evidence, if he had it, may be eafily produced. But, fo far as we can find, the Erfe language was never written till very lately for the purposes of religion. A nation that cannot write, or a language that was never written, has no manuscripts. "But whatever he has, he never offered to fhow. If old manuscripts fhould now be mentioned, I fhould, unless there were more evidence than can be easily had, suppose them another proof of Scotch confpiracy in national falfehood. "Do not cenfure the expreffion; you know it to be true. "Dr. Memis's queftion is fo narrow as to allow no fpeculation; and I have no facts before me but those which his advocate has produced against you. "I confulted this morning the Prefident of the London College of Phyficians, who says, that with us, Doctor of Phyfick (we do not say Doctor of Medicine) is the highest title that a practicer of phyfick can have; that Doctor implies not only Physician, but teacher of phyfick; that every Doctor is legally a Physician, but no man, not a Doctor, can practice phyfick but by licence particularly granted. The Doctorate is a licence of itself. It seems to us a very flender cause of profecution. "I am now engaged, but in a little time I hope to do all you would have. My compliments to Madam and Veronica. I am, Sir, "Your most humble fervant, February 7, 1775. SAM. JOHNSON." What words were ufed by Mr. Macpherson in his letter to the venerable Sage, I have never heard; but they are generally faid to have been of a nature very different from the language of literary conteft. Dr. Johnson's answer appeared in the newspapers of the day, and has fince been frequently re-published; re-published; but not with perfect accuracy. I give it as dictated to me by 1775. himfelf, written down in his presence, and authenticated by a note in his own Etat. 66. hand-writing, " This, I think, is a true copy." "Mr. JAMES MACPHERSON, I RECEIVED your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I fhall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian. "What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture ftill. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, fince your Homer, are not fo formidable; and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you fhall fay, but to what you fhall prove. You may print this if you will. "SAM. JOHNSON." Mr. Macpherson little knew the character of Dr. Johnson, if he fuppofed that he could be easily intimidated; for no man was ever more remarkable for perfonal courage. He had, indeed, an aweful dread of death, or rather " of fomething after death;" and what rational man, who seriously thinks of quitting all that he has ever known, and going into a new and unknown state of being, can be without that dread? But his fear was from reflection, his courage natural. His fear, in that one instance, was the result of philofophical and religious confideration. He feared death, but he feared nothing else, not even what might occafion death. Many instances of his refolution may be mentioned. One day, at Mr. Beauclerk's houfe in the country, when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them, and beat them till they separated; and at another time, when told of the danger there was that a gun might burst if charged with many balls, he put in fix or feven, and fired it off against a wall. Mr. Langton told me, that when they were fwimming together near Oxford, he cautioned Dr. Johnfon against a pool, which was reckoned particularly dangerous; upon which Johnson directly fwam into it. He told me himself that one night he was attacked in the street by four men, to whom he would not yield, but kept them all at bay, till the watch came up, and carried both him and them to the round-house. In the play-house at Lichfield, as Mr. Garrick informed me, Johnson having for a moment quitted a chair which was placed for him between the side-scenes, a gentleman took poffeffion M m m 1775 poffeffion of it, and when Johnson on his return civilly demanded his feat, rudely Etat. 66. refufed to give it up; upon which Johnson laid hold of him, and toffed him and the chair into the pit. Foote, who fo fuccefsfully revived the old comedy, by exhibiting living characters, had resolved to imitate Johnson on the stage, expecting great profits from his ridicule of so celebrated a man. Johnson being informed of his intention, and being at dinner at Mr. Thomas Davies's the bookfeller, from whom I had the ftory, he afked Mr. Davies "what was the common price of an oak stick ;" and being answered fix-pence, "Why then, Sir, (faid he,) give me leave to fend your fervant to purchase me a shilling one. I'll have a double quantity; for I am told Foote means to take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow fhall not do it with impunity." Davies took care to acquaint Foote of this, which effectually checked the wantonnefs of the mimick. Mr. Macpherson's menaces made Johnson provide himself with the fame implement of defence; and had he been attacked, I have no doubt that, old as he was, he would have made his corporal prowess be felt as much as his intellectual. His Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland," is a moft valuable performance. It abounds in extenfive philofophical views of fociety, and in ingenious fentiments and lively defcription. A confiderable part of it, indeed, confifts of fpeculations, which many years before he faw the wild regions which we vifited together, probably had employed his attention, though the actual fight of thofe fcenes undoubtedly quickened and augmented them. Mr. Orme, the very able historian, agreed with me in this opinion, which he thus ftrongly expreffed :-" There are in that book thoughts, which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished like pebbles rolled in the ocean!" That he was to fome degree of excess a true-born Englishman, fo as to have ever entertained an undue prejudice against both the country and the people of Scotland, must be allowed. But it was a prejudice of the head, and not of the heart. He had no ill will to the Scotch; for, if he had been confcious of that, he would never have thrown himself into the bofom of their country, and trufted to the protection of its remote inhabitants with a fearless confidence. His remark upon the nakedness of the country, from its being denuded of trees, was made after having travelled two hundred miles along the eastern coaft, where certainly trees are not to be found near the road, and he faid it was " a map of the road" which he gave. His difbelief of the authenticity of the poems afcribed to Offian, a Highland bard, was confirmed in the course of his journey, by a very strict examination of the evidence offered for it; and although their 2 |