to furnish himself with materials for a Gaelick Dictionary, which he afterwards compiled[787], was so fully satisfied that Dr. Johnson was in the right upon the question, that he candidly published a pamphlet, stating his conviction and the proofs and reasons on which it was founded.  A person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this pamphlet with much zeal, and much abuse of its authour.  Johnson took Mr. Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assistance in writing a reply, which has been admired by the best judges, and by many been considered as conclusive.  A few paragraphs, which sufficiently mark their great Authour, shall be selected:—­

’My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative:  I deny the existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through the Gaelick regions I have never been able to find it.  What I could not see myself I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man can shew it.

’Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed in red.  The blind man’s doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that others have a power which he himself wants:  but what perspicacity has Mr. Clark which Nature has withheld from me or the rest of mankind?

’The true state of the parallel must be this.  Suppose a man, with eyes like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, that the troops, indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary dress, but that every soldier had likewise a suit of black velvet, which he put on when the King reviews them.  This he thinks strange, and desires to see the fine clothes, but finds nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either coat or waistcoat.  One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port Mahon; another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes somewhere; and a third has heard somebody say, that soldiers ought to wear velvet.  Can the enquirer be blamed if he goes away believing that a soldier’s red coat is all that he has?

’But the most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced by acts.  To overpower contradictions, let the soldier shew his velvet-coat, and the Fingalist the original of Ossian[788].

’The difference between us and the blind man is this:—­the blind man is unconvinced, because he cannot see; and we, because though we can see, we find that nothing can be shown.’

Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under which Johnson now laboured, he did not resign himself to despondency and discontent, but with wisdom and spirit endeavoured to console and amuse his mind with as many innocent enjoyments as he could procure.  Sir John Hawkins has mentioned the cordiality with which he insisted that such of the members of the old club in Ivy-lane[789] as survived, should meet again and dine together, which they did, twice at a tavern and once at his house[790]:  and in order to insure himself society in the evening for three days in the week[791], he instituted a club at the Essex Head, in Essex-street, then kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale’s.