original genius. So that Caledonia, if she had one forger the more, had not one poet the less. She made up in genius what she lost in character. But this Dr. Johnson failed to see, being, poor man, "naturally pompous and vain, and ridiculously ambitious of an exclusive reputation in letters." It must have been this same pomposity,
GLENCROE.
vanity, and ambition which led him to say of these poems: "Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it."[1]
That Johnson's narrative should have roused resentment is not surprising. Even his friend Beattie, "much as he loved and revered him," yet found in it "some asperities that seem to be the effect of national prejudice."[2] That "this true-born Englishman," as Boswell delights to call him, should have given a wholly unpre-
