sheer rubbish. I have already quoted the retort about "many men, many
women, and many children." "A man," he said, on another occasion, "might
write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it."

The precise point, however, upon which he rested his case, was the
tangible one of the inability of Macpherson to produce the manuscripts
of which he had affirmed the existence. MacPherson wrote a furious
letter to Johnson, of which the purport can only be inferred from
Johnson's smashing retort,--

"Mr. James MacPherson, I have received your foolish and impudent letter.
Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot
do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred
from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian.

"What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture: I
think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to
the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your
abilities, since your _Homer_, are not so formidable; and what I hear of
your morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to
what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.

"SAM. JOHNSON."

And so laying in a tremendous cudgel, the old gentleman (he was now
sixty-six) awaited the assault, which, however, was not delivered.

In 1775 Boswell again came to London, and renewed some of the Scotch
discussions. He attended a meeting of the Literary Club, and found the
members disposed to laugh at Johnson's tenderness to the stories about