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some days after talking of it with the natural elation of a Scotchman, or of any man who is proud of a stately fortress in his own country, Dr. Johnson affected to despise it, observing, that "it would make a good prison in ENGLAND."

Lest it should be supposed that I have suppressed one of his sallies against my country, it may not be improper here to correct a mistaken account that has been circulated, as to his conversation this day. It has been said, that, being desired to attend to the noble prospect from the Castle-hill, he replied, "Sir, the noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to London." This lively sarcasm was thrown out at a tavern in London, in my presence, many years before.1

We had with us to-day at dinner, at my house, the Lady Dowager Colvill, and Lady Anne Erskine, sisters of the Earl of Kelly; the Honourable Archibald Erskine, who has now succeeded to that title; Lord Elibank; the Reverend Dr. Blair; Mr. Tytler, the acute vindicator of Mary Queen of Scots, and his son, the advocate.

"Fingal" being talked of, Dr. Johnson, who used to boast that he had, from the first, resisted both Ossian and the Giants of Patagonia, averred his positive disbelief of its authenticity. Lord Elibank said, "I am sure it is not M'Pherson's. Mr. Johnson, I keep company a great deal with you; it is known I do. I may borrow from you better things than I can say myself, and give them as my own; but, if I should, every body will know whose they are." The Doctor was not softened by this compliment. He denied merit to "Fingal," supposing it to be the production of a man who has had the advantages that the present age affords; and said, "nothing is more easy than to write enough in that style, if once you begin.' Young Mr. Tytler stepped briskly forward, and

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Second Edition.-Line 17: "and his son, the advocate" altered to "and some other friends."

I desire not to be understood as agreeing entirely with the opinions of Dr. Johnson, which I relate without any remark. The many imitations, however, of "Fingal," that have been published, confirm this observation in a considerable degree. Second Edition.-Last line: From "Young Mr. Tytler" to "ready brased" altered to "One gentleman in company expressing his opinion that "Fingal" was certainly genuine, for that he had heard a great part of it repeated in the original,' Dr. Johnson indignantly asked him whether he understood the original; to which an answer being given in the negative, Why, then, (said Dr. Johnson,) we see to what this testimony comes :-thus it is."" 2

1 Captain Topham, in his "Letters," records that the general report of Johnson's behaviour on the Tour was, that he had been most offensive in his criticisms of the inhabitants and their cus

toms, though he praised the country.
2 Here was another highly personal
sketch withdrawn. "Young Mr. Tytler"
later became a Scotch judge, under the
title of Lord Woodhouselee.

said, “‘Fingal' is certainly genuine; for I have heard a great part of it repeated in the original." Dr. Johnson indignantly asked him, "Sir, do you understand the original?" TYTLER. "No, sir." JOHNSON. "Why, then, we see to what this test imony comes :Thus it is." He afterwards said to me, "Did you observe the wonderful confidence with which young Tytler advanced, with his front ready brased ?”

"

I mention this as a remarkable proof how liable the mind of man is to credulity, when not guarded by such strict examination as that which Dr. Johnson habitually practised. This gentleman's talents and integrity are unquestionable; yet, had not Dr. Johnson made him advert to the consideration, that he who does not understand a language, cannot know that something which is recited to him is in that language, he might have believed, and reported to this hour, that he had "heard a great part of 'Fingal' repeated in the original."

For the satisfaction of those on the north of the Tweed, who may think Dr. Johnson's account of Caledonian credulity and inaccuracy too strong, it is but fair to add, that he admitted the same kind of ready belief might be found in his own country. "He would undertake (he said) to write an epick poem on the story of 'Robin Hood,' and half England, to whom the names and places he should mention in it are familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from their earliest years."

One of his objections to the authenticity of "Fingal," during the conversation at Ulinish, is omitted in my Journal, but I perfectly recollect it. "Why is not the original deposited in some publick library, instead of exhibiting attestations of its existence? Suppose there were a question in a court of justice, whether a man be dead or alive: You aver he is alive, and you bring fifty witnesses to swear it: I answer, Why do you not produce the man?" This is an argument founded on one of the first principles of the law of evidence, which Gilbert would have held to be irrefragable.

I do not think it incumbent on me to give any precise decided opinion upon this question, as to which I believe more than some, and less than others. The subject appears to have now become very uninteresting to the publick. That " "Fingal" is not from beginning to end a translation from the Galick, but that some passages have been supplied by the editor to connect the whole, I have heard admitted by very warm advocates for its authenticity. If this be the case, why are not these distinctly ascertained? Antiqua

Second Edition.-Line 10: "This gentleman's talents," &c., altered to "The talents and integrity of the gentleman who made the remark are unquestionable."

ries, and admirers of the work, may complain, that they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy gentleman whose wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their reputed children was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to declare which of them it was, she answered, "That you shall never know;" and expired, leaving him in irremediable doubt as to them all.

I beg leave now to say something upon second sight, of which I have related two instances, as they impressed my mind at the time. I own, I returned from the Hebrides with a considerable degree a faith in the many stories of that kind which I heard with a too easy acquiescence, without any close examination of the evidence: but, since that time, my belief in those stories has been much weakened, by reflecting on the careless inaccuracy of narrative in common matters, from which we may certainly conclude that there may be the same in what is more extraordinary. It is but just, however, to add, that the belief in second sight is not peculiar to the Highlands and isles.

Some years after our Tour, a cause was tried in the Court of Session, where the principal fact to be ascertained was, whether a ship-master, who used to frequent the Western Highlands and Isles, was drowned in one particular year, or in the year after. A great number of witnesses from those parts were examined on each side, and swore directly contrary to each other, upon this simple question. One of them, a very respectable Chieftain, who told me a story of second sight, which I have not mentioned, but which I too implicitly believed, had in this case, previous to his publick examination, not only said, but attested under his hand, that he had seen the ship-master in the year subsequent to that in which the cour: was finally satisfied he was drowned. When interrogated with the strictness of judicial inquiry, and under the awe of an oath, he recollected himself better, and retracted what he had formerly asserted, apologising for his inaccuracy, by telling the judges, "A man will say what he will not swear." By many he was much censured, and it was maintained that every gentleman would be as attentive to truth without the sanction of an oath, as with it. Dr. Johnson, though he himself was distinguished at all times by a scrupulous adherence to truth, controverted this proposition; and, as a proof that this was not, though it ought to be, the case, urged the very different decisions of elections under Mr. Grenville's Act, from those formerly made. "Gentlemen will not pronounce upon oath, what they would have said, and voted in the house, without that sanction."

However difficult it may be for men who believe in preternatural

communications, in modern times, to satisfy those who are of a different opinion, they may easily refute the doctrine of their opponents, who impute a belief in second sight to superstition. To Το entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, if proved, has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electricity.

After dinner, various topicks were discussed; but I recollect only one particular. Dr. Johnson compared the different talents of Garrick and Foote, as companions, and gave Garrick greatly the preference for elegance, though he allowed Foote extraordinary powers of entertainment. He said, He said, "Garrick is restrained by some principle; but Foote has the advantage of an unlimited range. Garrick has some delicacy of feeling; it is possible to put him out; you may get the better of him; but Foote is the most incompressible fellow that I ever knew: when you have driven him into a corner, and think you are sure of him, he runs through between your legs, or jumps over your head, and makes his escape."

Dr. Erskine and Mr. Robert Walker, two very respectable minis ters of Edinburgh, supped with us, as as did the Reverend Dr. Webster. The conversation turned on the Moravian missions, and on the Methodists. Dr. Johnson observed in general, that missionaries were too sanguine in their accounts of their success among savages, and that much of what they tell is not to be believed. He owned that the Methodists had done good; had spread religious impressions among the vulgar part of mankind: but, he said, they had great bitterness against other Christians, and that he never could get a Methodist to explain in what he excelled others; that it always ended in the indispensible necessity of hearing one of their preachers.

Thursday, 11th November.

Principal Robertson came to us as we sat at breakfast: he advanced to Dr. Johnson, repeating a line of Virgil, which I forget. suppose either

I

"Post varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum,—

Second Edition.-Note on last line :

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or

"—multum ille et terris jactatus, et alto."

Every body had addressed us with some studied compliment on our return. Dr. Johnson said, "I am really ashamed of the congratulations which we receive. We are addressed as if we had made a voyage to Nova Zembla, and suffered five persecutions in Japan." And he afterwards remarked, that, "to see a man come up with a formal air, and a Latin line, when we had no fatigue and no danger, was provoking." I told him, he was not sensible of the danger, having lain under cover in the boat during the storm: he was like the chicken, that hides its head under its wing, and then thinks itself safe.

Lord Elibank came to us, as did Sir William Forbes. The rash attempt in 1745 being mentioned, I observed, that it would make a fine piece of History. Dr. Johnson said it would. Lord Elibank doubted whether any man of this age could give it impartially. JOHNSON. "A man, by talking with those of different sides, who were actors in it, and putting down all that he hears, may in time collect the materials of a good narrative. You are to consider, all history was at first oral. I suppose Voltaire was fifty years in collecting his Louis XIV. which he did in the way that I am proposing." ROBERTSON. "He did so. He lived much with all the great people who were concerned in that reign, and heard them talk of every thing; and then either took Mr. Boswell's way, of writing down what he heard, or, which is as good, preserved it in his memory; for he has a wonderful memory." With the leave, however, of this elegant historian, no man's memory can preserve facts or sayings with such fidelity as may be done by writing them down when they are recent. Dr. Robertson said, "it was now full time to make such a collection as Dr. Johnson suggested; for many of the people who were then in arms, were dropping off; and both Whigs and Jacobites were now come to talk with moderation." Lord Elibank said to him, "Mr. Robertson, the first thing that gave me a high opinion of you, was your saying in the Select Society, while parties rau high, soon after the year 1745, that you did not think worse of a man's moral character for his having been in rebellion. This was venturing to utter a liberal sentiment, while both sides had a detestation of each other."

Dr. Johnson observed, that being in rebellion from a notion of Second Edition.-Note on line 2 :

""Long labours both by sea and land he bore.'"-DRYDEN.

• A society for debate in Edinburgh, consisting of the most eminent men.

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