e. 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.

In the year 1777, the misfortunes of Dr. Dodd excited his compassion. He
wrote a speech for that unhappy man, when called up to receive judgment
of death; besides two petitions, one to the king, and another to the
queen; and a sermon to be preached by Dodd to the convicts in Newgate.
It may appear trifling to add, that, about the same time, he wrote a
prologue to the comedy of a Word to the Wise, written by Hugh Kelly. The
play, some years before, had been damned by a party on the first night.
It was revived for the benefit of the author's widow. Mrs. Piozzi
relates, that when Johnson was rallied for these exertions, so close to
one another, his answer was, "When they come to me with a dying parson,
and a dead stay-maker, what can a man do?"

We come now to the last of his literary labours. At the request of the
booksellers, he undertook the Lives of the Poets. The first publication
was in 1779, and the whole was completed in 1781. In a memorandum of
that year, he says, some time in March he finished the Lives of the
Poets, which he wrote in his usual way, dilatorily and hastily,
unwilling to work, yet working with vigour and haste. In another place,
he hopes they are written in such a manner, as may tend to the promotion
of piety. That the history of so many men, who, in their different
degrees, made themselves conspicuous in their time, was n