reat power of reasoning and eloquence. I
am very sorry that I have no record of that day[785]: but I well
recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shewn, that unless civil
institutions insure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which
mankind should have in them would be lost.

I shall here mention what, in strict chronological arrangement, should
have appeared in my account of last year; but may more properly be
introduced here, the controversy having not been closed till this. The
Reverend Mr. Shaw[786], a native of one of the Hebrides, having
entertained doubts of the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian,
divested himself of national bigotry; and having travelled in the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and also in Ireland, in order 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 vel