'I find that the Highlanders and Hebrideans in general are much fonder of your Journey than the low-country or hither Scots. One of the Grants said to-day that he was sure you were a man of a good heart, and a candid man, and seemed to hope that he should be able to convince you of the antiquity of a good proportion of the poems of Ossian. After all that has passed, I think the matter is capable of being proved to a certain degree. I am told that Macpherson got one old Erse Ms. from Clanranald, for the restitution of which he executed a formal obligation; and it is affirmed that the Gaelic (call it Erse or call it Irish) has been written in the Highlands and Hebrides for many centuries. It is reasonable to suppose that such of the inhabitants as acquired any learning, possessed the art of writing as well as their Irish neighbours and Celtic cousins; and the question is, can sufficient evidence be shown of this?

Those who are skilled in ancient writings can determine the age of MSS., or at least can ascertain the century in which they were written; and if men of veracity, who are so skilled, shall tell us that MSS. in the possession of families in the Highlands and isles are the works of a remote age, I think we should be convinced by their testimony.

'There is now come to this city Ranald Macdonald, from the Isle of Egg, who has several MSS. of Erse poetry, which he wishes to publish by subscription. I have engaged to take three copies of the book, the price of which is to be six shillings, as I would subscribe for all the Erse that can be printed, be it old or new, that the language may be preserved. This man says that some of his manuscripts are ancient; and, to be sure, one of them which was shown to me does appear to have the duskiness of antiquity.

The inquiry is not yet quite hopeless, and I should think that the exact truth may be discovered, if proper means be used.—I am, etc., 'JAMES BOSWELL.'

'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'Feb. 25, 1775.

'DEAR SIR,-I am sorry that I could not get books for my friends in Scotland. Mr. Strahan has at last promised to send two dozen to you. If they come, put the names of my friends into them you may cut them out,' and paste them with a little starch in the book.

'You then are going wild about Ossian. Why do you think any part can be proved? The dusky manuscript of Egg is probably not fifty years old; if it be an hundred, it proves nothing. The tale of Clanranald is no proof. Has Clanranald told it? Can he prove it? There are, I believe, no Erse manuscripts. None of the old families had a single letter in

From a list in his handwriting.-BOSWELL.

Erse that we heard of. You say it is likely that they could write. The learned, if any learned there were, could; but knowing, by that learning, some written language, in that language they wrote, as letters had never been applied to their own. If there are manuscripts, let them be shown, with some proof that they are not forged for the occasion. You say many can remember parts of Ossian. I believe all those parts are versions of the English; at least there is no proof of their antiquity.

'Macpherson is said to have made some translations himself; and having taught a boy to write it, ordered him to say that he had learned it of his grandmother. The boy, when he grew up, told the story. This Mrs. Williams heard at Mr. Strahan's table. Don't be credulous; you know how little a Highlander can be trusted. Macpherson is, so far as I know, very quiet. Is not that proof enough? Everything is against him. No visible manuscript; no inscription in the language; no correspondence among friends; no transaction of business, of which a single scrap remains in the ancient families. Macpherson's pretence is that the character was Saxon. If he had not talked unskilfully of manuscripts, he might have fought with oral tradition much longer. As to Mr. Grant's information, suppose he knows much less of the matter than ourselves.

'In the mean time, the bookseller says that the sale is sufficiently quick. They printed four thousand. Correct your copy wherever it is wrong, and bring it up. Your friends will all be glad to see you. I think of going myself into the country about May.

'I am sorry that I have not managed to send the books sooner. I have left four for you, and do not restrict you absolutely to follow my directions in the distribution. You must use your own discretion.

'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell: I suppose she is now beginning to forgive me.-I am, dear sir, your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

CHAPTER XXX.

1775.

ON Tuesday, March 21, I arrived in London; and on repairing to Dr. Johnson's before dinner, found him in his study, sitting with Mr. Peter Garrick, the elder brother of David, strongly resembling him in countenance and voice, but of more sedate and placid manners. Johnson informed me, that though Mr. Beauclerk was in great pain, it was hoped he was not in danger, and that he now wished to consult Dr. Heberden, to try the effect of a new understanding.'

1 Of his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

Both at this interview, and in the evening at Mr. Thrale's, where he and Mr. Peter Garrick and I met again, he was vehement on the subject of the Ossian controversy; observing, 'We do not know that there are any ancient Erse manuscripts; and we have no other reason to disbelieve that there are men with three heads, but that we do not know that there are any such men.' He was outrageous upon his supposition that my countrymen 'loved Scotland better than truth,' saying, 'All of them--nay, not all, but droves of them-would come up and attest anything for the honour of Scotland.' He also persevered in his wild allegation that he questioned if there was a tree between Edinburgh and the English border older than himself. I assured him he was mistaken, and suggested that the proper punishment would be that he should receive a stripe at every tree above a hundred years old, that was found within that space. He laughed, and said, 'I believe I might submit to it for a bawbee !'

The doubts which, in my correspondence with him, I had ventured to state as to the justice and wisdom of the conduct of Great Britain towards the American colonies, while I at the same time requested that he would enable me to inform myself upon that momentous subject, he had altogether disregarded, and had recently published a pamphlet, entitled, Taxation no Tyranny: an answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress.[*]

He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For as early as 1769, I was told by Dr. John Campbell that he had said of them, 'Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.'

Of this performance I avoided to talk with him; for I had now formed a clear and settled opinion, that the people of America were well warranted to resist a claim that their fellowsubjects in the mother-country should have the entire command of their fortunes, by taxing them without their own consent; and the extreme violence which it breathed appeared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a Christian philosopher, and so directly opposite to the principles of peace, which he had so beautifully recommended in his pamphlet respecting Falkland's Islands, that I was sorry to see him appear in so unfavourable a light. Besides, I could not perceive in it that ability of argument, or that felicity of expression, for which he was, upon other occasions, so eminent. Positive assertion, sarcastical severity, and extravagant ridicule, which he himself reprobated as a test of truth, were united in this rhapsody.

That this pamphlet was written at the desire of those who were then in power, I have no doubt; and, indeed, he owned to me that it had been revised and curtailed by some of them.

He told me that they had struck out one passage, which was to this effect :

"That the colonists could with no solidity argue from their not having been taxed while in their infancy, that they should not now be taxed. We do not put a calf into the plough; we wait till he is an ox.'

He said, 'They struck it out either critically as too ridiculous, or politically as too exasperating. I care not which. It was their business. If an architect says, I will build five storeys, and the man who employs him says, I will have only three, the employer is to decide.' 'Yes, sir,' said I, in ordinary cases. But should it be so when the architect gives his skill and labour gratis?'

Unfavourable as I am constrained to say my opinion of this pamphlet was, yet, since it was congenial with the sentiments of numbers at that time, and as everything relating to the writings of Dr. Johnson is of importance in literary history, I shall therefore insert some passages which were struck out, it does not appear why, either by himself or those who revised it. They appear printed in a few proof leaves of it in my possession, marked with corrections in his own handwriting. I shall distinguish them by italics.

In the paragraph where he says the Americans were incited to resistance by European intelligence from

'men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themselves,' there followed,

'and made by their selfishness, the enemies of their country.'

And the next paragraph ran thus :

'On the original contrivers of mischief, rather than on those whom they have deluded, let an insulted nation pour out its vengeance.'

The paragraph which came next was in these words:

'Unhappy is that country in which men can hope for advancement by favouring its enemies. The tranquillity of stable government is not always easily preserved against the machinations of single innovators; but what can be the hope of quiet, when factions hostile to the legislature can be openly formed and openly avowed?'

After the paragraph which now concludes the pamphlet, there followed this, in which he certainly means the great Earl of Chatham, and glances at a certain popular Lord Chancellor :

'If, by the fortune of war, they drive us utterly away, what they will do next can only be conjectured. If a new monarchy is erected, they will want a KING. He who first takes into his hand the sceptre of America should have a name of good omen. WILLIAM has been known both as conqueror and deliverer; and perhaps England, however contemned, might yet supply them with

1 Lord Camden.

'Their numbers are, at present, not quite sufficient for the greatness which, in some form of government or other, is to rival the ancient monarchies; but by Dr. Franklin's rule of progression, they will, in a century and a quarter, be more than equal to the inhabitants of Europe. When the Whigs of America are thus multiplied, let the princes of the earth tremble in their palaces. If they should continue to double and to double, their own hemisphere would not contain them. But let not our boldest oppugners of authority look forward with delight to this futurity of Whiggism.' How it ended I know not, as it is cut off abruptly at the foot of the last of these proof pages.

His pamphlets in support of the measures of administration were published on his own account, and he afterwards collected them into a volume, with the title of Political Tracts by the Author of the Rambler, with this motto:

'Fallitur egregio quisquis sub Principe credit
Servitium; nunquam libertas gratior extat
Quam sub Rege pio.'-CLAUDIANUS.

These pamphlets drew upon him numerous attacks. Against the common weapons of literary warfare he was hardened; but there were two instances of animadversion which I communicated to him, and from what I could judge, both from his silence and his looks, appeared to me to impress him much.

One was, A Letter to Dr. Samuel Johnson, occasioned by his late political Publications. It appeared previous to his Taxation no Tyranny, and was written by Dr. Joseph Towers. In that performance, Dr. Johnson was treated with the respect due to so eminent a man, while his conduct as a political writer was boldly and pointedly arraigned, as inconsistent with the character of one who, if he did employ his pen upon politics,

'it might reasonably be expected should distinguish himself, not by party violence and rancour, but by moderation and by wisdom.'

formances, the Rambler, the pleasure which I have been accustomed to find in it will be much diminished by the reflection that the writer of so moral, so elegant, and so valuable a work, was capable of prostituting his talents in such productions as The False Alarm, the Thoughts on the Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands, and The Patriot.'

I am willing to do justice to the merit of Dr. Towers, of whom I will say, that although I abhor his Whiggish democratical notions and propensities (for I will not call them principles), I esteem him as an ingenious, knowing, and very convivial man.

The other instance was a paragraph of a letter to me from my old and most intimate friend the Reverend Mr. Temple, who wrote the character of Gray, which has had the honour to be adopted both by Mr. Mason and Dr. Johnson in their accounts of that poct. The words were

'How can your great, I will not say your pious, but your moral friend, support the barbarous measures of administration, which they have not the face to ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to defend?'

However confident of the rectitude of his own mind, Johnson may have felt sincere uneasiness that his conduct should be erroneously imputed to unworthy motives by good men, and that the influence of his valuable writings should on that account be in any degree obstructed or lessened.

He complained to a right honourable friend of distinguished talents and very elegant manners, with whom he maintained a long intimacy, and whose generosity towards him will afterwards appear, that his pension having been given to him as a literary character, he had been applied to by the administration to write political pamphlets; and he was even so much irritated that he declared his resolution to resign his pension. His friends showed him the impropriety of such a measure, and he afterwards expressed his gratitude, and said he had received good advice. To that friend he once signified a wish to have his pension secured to him for life; but he neither asked nor received from Government any reward whatsoever for his political labours.

On Friday, March 24, I met him at the LITERARY CLUB, where were Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Mr. Colman, Dr. Percy, Mr. Vesey, Sir Charles Bunbury, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Steevens, and Mr. Charles Fox. Before he came in we talked of his Journey to the Western Islands, and of his coming away, willing to believe the second sight,' which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with the truth of many of the stories of which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, 'He is only willing to believe: I do believe. The evidence is enough for me,

though not for his great mind.

What will not fill a quart bottle, will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief.' 'Are you?" said Colman; 'then cork it up.'

I found his Journey the common topic of conversation in London at this time, wherever I happened to be. At one of Lord Mansfield's formal Sunday evening conversations, strangely called Levées, his lordship addressed me, 'We have all been reading your travels, Mr Boswell.' I answered, 'I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson.' The Chief-Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever saw and heard him, can forget, 'He speaks ill of nobody but Ossian.'

Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the Club, and talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. "The Tale of a Tub is so superior to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the author of it: there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life.' I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's Travels, 'When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.' I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of The Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God, as he consulted it upon all occasions. He observed that 'Swift put his name to but two things (after he had a name to put), The Plan for the Improvement of the English Language, and the last Drapier's Letter.'

From Swift there was an easy transition to Mr. Thomas Sheridan. JOHNSON: 'Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of Douglas,

1 This doubt has been much agitated on both sides, I think without good reason. See Addison's Freeholder, May 4, 1714; An Apology for the Tale of a Tub; Dr. Hawkesworth's Preface to Swift's Works, and Swift's Letter to Tooke the Printer, and Tooke's Answer in that collection; Sheridan's Life of Swift; Mr. Courtenay's note on p. 3 of his Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson; and Mr. Cooksey's Essay on the Life and Character of John Lord Somers, Baron of Evesham.

Dr. Johnson here speaks only to the internal evidence. I take leave to differ from him, having a very high estimation of the powers of Dr. Swift. His Sentiments of a Church-of- England man, his Sermon on the Trinity, and other serious pieces, prove his learning as well as his acuteness in logic and metaphysics; and his various compositions of a different cast exhibit not only wit, humour, and ridicule, but a knowledge of nature, and art, and life.' A combination therefore of those powers, when (as the Apology says) the author was young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head,' might surely produce The Tale of a Tub.-BOSWELL.

and presented its author with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffeehouse in Oxford, I called to him, "Mr Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?" This, you see, was wanton and insolent; but I meant to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatic excellence, he should have requested one of the Universities to choose the person on whom it should be conferred. Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit: it was counterfeiting Apollo's coin.'

On Monday, March 27, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Strahan's. He told us that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington's benefit. She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear; but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her.' This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us the play was to be The Hypocrite, altered from Cibber's Nonjuror, so as to satirize the Methodists. 'I do not think,' said he,' the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the Nonjurors. I once said to Dr. Madan,' a clergyman of Ireland, who was a great Whig, that perhaps a Nonjuror would have been less criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power than refusing them; because refusing them necessarily laid him under almost an irresistible temptation to be more criminal; for, a man must live, and if he precludes himself from the support furnished by the establishment, will probably be reduced to very wicked shifts to maintain himself.' BOSWELL: 'I should think, sir, that a man who took the oaths contrary to his principles was a determined wicked man, because he was sure he was committing perjury; whereas a Nonjuror might be insensibly led to do what was wrong, without being so directly conscious of it.' JOHNSON: Why, sir, a man who goes to bed to his patron's wife, is pretty sure that he is committing wickedness.' BOSWELL: 'Did the nonjuring clergymen do so, sir?' JOHNSON: 'I am afraid many of them did.'

I was startled at this argument, and could by no means think it convincing. Had not his own father complied with the requisition of Government (as to which he once observed to me, when I pressed him upon it, 'That, sir, he was to settle with himself '), he would probably have

1 Mr. Croker thinks this a mistake for Madden.