country bare of trees, and he has stated the fact.  This, Mr. Boswell, in his tour to the Hebrides, has told us, was resented, by his countrymen, with anger inflamed to rancour; but he admits that there are few trees on the east side of Scotland.  Mr. Pennant, in his tour, says, that, in some parts of the eastern side of the country, he saw several large plantations of pine, planted by gentlemen near their seats; and, in this respect, such a laudable spirit prevails, that, in another half-century, it never shall be said, “To spy the nakedness of the land are you come.”  Johnson could not wait for that half-century, and, therefore, mentioned things as he found them.  If, in any thing, he has been mistaken, he has made a fair apology, in the last paragraph of his book, avowing with candour:  “That he may have been surprised by modes of life, and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of wider survey, and more varied conversation.  Novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal:  and he is conscious that his thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.”

The poems of Ossian made a part of Johnson’s inquiry, during his residence in Scotland and the Hebrides.  On his return to England, November, 1773, a storm seemed to be gathering over his head; but the cloud never burst, and the thunder never fell.—­Ossian, it is well known, was presented to the public, as a translation from the Erse; but that this was a fraud, Johnson declared, without hesitation.  “The Erse,” he says, “was always oral only, and never a written language.  The Welsh and the Irish were more cultivated.  In Erse, there was not in the world a single manuscript a hundred years old.  Martin, who, in the last century, published an account of the Western Islands, mentions Irish, but never Erse manuscripts, to be found in the islands in his time.  The bards could not read; if they could, they might, probably, have written.  But the bard was a barbarian among barbarians, and, knowing nothing himself, lived with others that knew no more.  If there is a manuscript from which the translation was made, in what age was it written, and where is it?  If it was collected from oral recitation, it could only be in detached parts, and scattered fragments:  the whole is too long to be remembered.  Who put it together in its present form?” For these, and such like reasons, Johnson calls the whole an imposture.  He adds, “The editor, or author, never could show the original, nor can it be shown by any other.  To revenge reasonable incredulity, by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt.”  This reasoning carries with it great weight.  It roused the resentment of Mr. Macpherson.  He sent a threatening letter to the author; and Johnson answered him in the rough phrase of stern defiance.  The two heroes frowned at a distance, but never came to action.