ssian. If we have not searched the Magellanick
regions, let us however forbear to people them with Patagons.' Johnson's
_Works_, ix. 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 t