212] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



which he received from some individuals, and the unsatisfactory 

 report of others, the Doctor declared his opinion that the supposed 

 production of an ancient Caledonian bard was the fabrication of 

 Macpherson, who thus wished to impose on the public. Macpher- 

 son ivas exasperated at this detection of his imposture, and wrote 

 a menacing letter to Johnson, which the English critic answered in 

 a composition expressive of dignified contempt. 



In 1775, when the dispute between the English Government 

 and the American Colonists ran high, but prior to the actual com- 

 mencement of hostilities, Dr. Johnson wrote his " Taxation no 

 Tyranny," in which he endeavoured to prove that the mother 

 country, through the medium of her legislature, had a right to 

 tax her colonies, though they had independent legislative assem- 

 blies of their own. An appeal to arms, however, soon set aside 

 all the sophistical ingenuity of literary men ; the American re- 

 volt ended in a revolution and the establishment of the indepen- 

 dence of the United States, and a mutual intercourse between 

 them and Great Britain, is, at this moment, conducive to the pros- 

 perity of both countries. In autumn, the Doctor went on a tour 

 of two months, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, to Paris, 

 and other parts of France ; and while at Versailles, where our tour- 

 ists were shewn the machinery of the theatre, Johnson's patriotism 

 was excited by a remark of one of his companions, who said, 

 " Now we are here, what shall we act? The Englishman at Pa- 

 ris ?" 'No, no/ replied Johnson, 'we will try to act Henry the 

 Fifth/ 



In the summer of 1776 he visited Lichfield, in company with his 

 friend Boswell, who gives a most interesting account of the excur- 

 sion. " I wished to have staid at Birmingham to-night," says he, 

 " but my friend was impatient to reach his native city, so we drove 

 on that stage in the dark. When we came within the focus of the 

 Lichfield lamps, " Now," said he, " we are getting out of a state 

 of death." We put up at the Three Crowns, not one of the 

 greatest inns, but a good old-fashioned one, which was the very 

 next house to that in which Johnson was born and brought up, and 

 which was still his property. We had a comfortable supper, and 

 got into high spirits. I felt all my Toryism glowing in this old 

 capital of Staffordshire. 



" Next morning he introduced me to Mrs. Lucy Porter, his step- 

 daughter. She was now an old maid, with much simplicity of man- 

 ner. Her brother, a captain in the navy, had left her a fortune of 



