Page:Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.djvu/36

"a hope of seeing good tragedies in the English language," for Johnny Home had written his Douglas. Wilkie of the Epigoniad, the great historian held, was to be the Homer, and Blacklock the Pindar, of Scotland.^[1] But it was in Ossian Macpherson that the hopes of the country had at one time soared highest. By Dr. Blair, the Edinburgh Professor of Rhetoric, he had been ranked with Homer and Virgil.^[2] The national pride, the honour of Scotland, was concerned, and the meanest motive was attributed to the man who had ventured to pronounce his poems an impudent forgery. Macpherson was a dangerous enemy. Against "the menaces of a ruffian" a thick cudgel might avail; but the secret arts of a literary forger were not so easily baffled. His position was one of great power, for from the Court he received a pension at first of £600 a year, and afterwards of £800, "to supervise the newspapers. He inserted what lies he pleased, and prevented whatever he disapproved of being printed."^[3] It was from this tainted source that no doubt sprang many of "the miserable cavillings against the Journey in newspapers, magazines, and other fugitive pieces."^[4] These, as Boswell tells us, "only furnished Johnson with sport." Nevertheless, though they did not trouble his mind, they marred the fame of his book, and prejudiced not only the immediate, but even the traditional judgment of Scotland. Enough dirt was thrown, and some of it did stick and sticks still. Lies were sent wandering through the land, and some of them have not even yet found their everlasting rest. One disgusting story, not unworthy of the inventive genius of Ossian himself, is still a solace to Scots of the baser sort. That it is a lie can be plainly proved, for it rests on a supposed constant suspicion in Johnson of the food provided for him. Now we know from his own writings that only twice in his tour had he "found any reason to complain of a Scottish table."^[5] Moreover, in his letters to Mrs. Thrale and in Boswell's Journal, we can follow his course with great accuracy and minuteness. Had there been any foundation for this lie it must be found on the road between Inverness and the seashore. Now we know what meals he had at each station. Even in the miserable inn at Glenelg, where his accommodation was at its worst, if he had chosen he could have had mutton chops and freshly-killed poultry.

1. Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 31.
2. * Boswell's Johnson, i. 396.
3. ' Walpole' Journal of the Reign of George III. (ed. 1859), ii. 17, 483.
4. 4 Boswell's Johnson, ii. 307.
5. Johnson's Works, ix. 19.