ospitality with which he had been received in every
part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxonian
Tory should praise the Presbyterian polity and ritual, or that an eye
accustomed to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be struck
by the bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. But even in censure
Johnson's tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotchmen, with
Lord Mansfield at their head, were well pleased. But some foolish and
ignorant Scotchmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth
which was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they chose
to consider as the enemy of their country with libels much more
dishonourable to their country than anything that he had ever said or
written. They published paragraphs in the newspapers, articles in the
magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One scribbler abused
Johnson for being blear-eyed; another for being a pensioner; a third
informed the world that one of the Doctor's uncles had been convicted
of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that country
one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Englishman. Macpherson,
whose Fingal had been proved in the Journey to be an impudent forgery,
threatened to take vengeance with a cane. The only effect of this
threat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery in the most
contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel,
which, if the impostor had not been too wise to encounter it, would
assuredly have descended upon him, to borrow the sublime language of his
own epic poem, "like a hammer on the red son of the furnace."

Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. He had early
resolved never to be drawn into controversy; and he adhered to his
resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary,
because he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stuff of which
controversialists are made. In conversation, he was a singularly eager,
acute, and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons,
he had recourse to sophistry; and, when heated by altercation, he made
unsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But, when he took his pen in his
hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers
misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could
boast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even of
a retort. The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and H