Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

y OH N SON'S REPLY. 251
Such were the incidents of a famous quarrel.
When Walpole heard of it he fastidiously de-
clared that Macpherson had been as much a
bully as Johnson a brute.^
It remains to show in what spirit Johnson
spoke of the encounter to his friends. We find
him writing to Boswell, who was then in Edin-
burgh, to say that Macpherson was very furious,
and to ask for further intelligence about him
and his Fiiigal. " Do what you can," he urged,
"and do it quickly. Is Lord Hailes on our
side?" Boswell rephed that his friend's conduct
had been represented in a very unfavourable light
in Edinburgh, and begged Johnson to furnish
him with a sufficient answer. He also inquired
what Becket meant by the statement about the
originals. To this inquiry Johnson, it seems,
returned no answer ; but he expressed sur-
prise that Boswell, " knowing the disposition of
his countrymen to tell lies in favour of one an-
other," should have been aff'ected by any reports
auction in 1875, for £50. The copy which appears in Bos-
well's Life was dictated by Johnson from recollection; and
the words of the first paragraph are not quite the same as
those given above, which are taken from the printed form in
the auctioneer's catalogue. ^Journal, i. 472.