116. Horace Walpole wrote on May 22, 1766 (Letters, iv. 500):--'Oh! but we have discovered a race of giants! Captain Byron has found a nation of Brobdignags on the coast of Patagonia; the inhabitants on foot taller than he and his men on horseback. I don't indeed know how he and his sailors came to be riding in the South Seas. However, it is a terrible blow to the Irish, for I suppose all our dowagers now will be for marrying Patagonians.'
[1057] 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. BOSWELL. Johnson said to Sir Joshua of Ossian:--'Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.' Ante, iv. 183.
[1058] In the first edition (p. 485) this paragraph ran thus:--'Young Mr. Tytler stepped briskly forward, and 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 testimony comes:--Thus it is."--He afterwards said to me, "Did you observe the wonderful confidence with which young Tytler advanced, with his front already brased?"'
[1059] For in company we should perhaps read in the company.
[1060] In the first edition, this gentleman's talents and integrity are, &c.
[1061] 'A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth: he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson's Works, ix. 116. See ante, ii. 311.
[1062] See ante, p. 164.
[1063] See ante, p. 242.
[1064] See ante, iv. 253.
[1065] Lord Chief Baron Geoffrey Gilbert published in 1760 a book on the Law of Evidence.
[1066] See ante, ii. 302.
[1067] Three instances, ante, pp. 160, 320.
[1068] See ante, ii. 318.
[1069] An instance is given in Sacheverell's Account of the Isle of Man, ed. 1702, p. 14.
[1070] Mr. J. T. Clark, the Keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, obligingly informs me that in the margin of the copy of Boswell's Journal in that Library it is stated that this cause was Wilson versus Maclean.
[1071] See ante, iv. 74, note 3.
[1072] See ante, iii 69, 183.
[1073] He is described in Guy Mannering, ed. 1860, iv. 98.
[1074] See ante, p. 50.
[1075] See ante, i. 458.
[1076] 'We now observe that the Methodists, where they scatter their opinions, represent themselves as preaching the Gospel to unconverted nations; and enthusiasts of all kinds have been inclined to disguise their particular tenets with pompous appellations, and to imagine themselves the great instruments of salvation.' Johnson's Works, vi. 417.
[1077]
Through various hazards and events we move.
Dryden, [Aeneid, I. 204]. BOSWELL.
[1078]
Long labours both by sea and land he bore.
Dryden, [Aeneid, I. 3]. BOSWELL.
[1079] The Jesuits, headed by Francis Xavier, made their appearance in Japan in 1549. The first persecution was in 1587; it was followed by others in 1590, 1597, 1637, 1638. Encyclo. Brit. 8th edit. xii. 697.
[1080] 'They congratulate our return as if we had been with Phipps or Banks; I am ashamed of their salutations.' Piozzi Letters, i. 203. Phipps had gone this year to the Arctic Ocean (ante, p. 236), and Banks had accompanied Captain Cook in 1768-1771. Johnson says however (Works, ix. 84), that 'to the southern inhabitants of Scotland the state of the mountains and the islands is equally unknown with that of Borneo or Sumatra.' See ante, p. 283, note 1, where Scott says that 'the whole expedition was highly perilous.' Smollett, in Humphry Clinker (Letter of July 18), says of Scotland in general:--'The people at the other end of the island know as little of Scotland as of Japan.'
[1081] In sailing from Sky to Col. Ante, p. 280.
[1082] Johnson, four years later, suggested to Boswell that he should write this history. Ante, iii. 162, 414.
[1083] Voltaire was born in 1694; his Louis XIV. was published in 1751 or 1752.
[1084] A society for debate in Edinburgh, consisting of the most eminent men. BOSWELL. It was founded in 1754 by Allan Ramsay the painter, aided by Robertson, Hume, and Smith. Dugald Stewart (Life of Robertson, ed. 1802, p. 5) says that 'it subsisted in vigour for six or seven years' and produced debates, such as have not often been heard in modern assemblies.' See also Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 297.
[1085] 'As for Maclaurin's imitation of a made dish, it was a wretched attempt.' Ante, i. 469.
[1086] It was of Lord Elibank's French cook 'that he exclaimed with vehemence, "I'd throw such a rascal into the river."'Ib.
[1087] 'He praised Gordon's palates with a warmth of expression which might have done honour to more important subjects.' Ib.
[1088] For the alarm he gave to Mrs. Boswell before this supper, see ib.