Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

THE QUARREL. 249
traducer".^ Johnson had specifically charged
him with "revenging reasonable increduhty by
refusing evidence"; and Macpherson lost no time
in doing what he could to refute the public accu-
sation that had been made. He called upon
Becket, his former pubhsher, to show that the
charge was false ; and Becket then sent the fol-
lowing statement to the papers : —
" To the Public.
"Doctor Johnson having asserted in his late
publication that the Translator of Ossian's
Poems ' never could show the original, nor can
it be shown by any other/ I hereby declare
that the originals of Fingal and other poems of
Ossian lay in my shop for many months in the
year 1762, for the inspection of the curious. The
public were not only apprised of their lying there
for inspection, but even proposals for publishing
the originals of the poems of Ossian were dis-
persed through the kingdom, and advertised in
the newspapers. Upon finding that a number of
subscribers sufficient to bear the expenses were
not likely to appear, I returned the manuscript
to the proprietor, in whose hands they still
remain.
"Thomas Becket.^
" Adelphi, 19th January, 1775."
^ This desci-iption of Macpherson's first letter is taken
from Clark's answer to Shaw's Inquiry, p. 48. Clark there
gives the words on the authority of a friend.
■^ See Notes and Queries, II. iii. 28.