When Dr. Johnson came down, I told him that I had now obtained some evidence concerning Fingal; for that Mr. M’Queen had repeated a passage in the original Erse, which Mr. M’Pherson’s translation was pretty like; and reminded him that he himself had once said, he did not require Mr. M’Pherson’s Ossian to be more like the original than Pope’s Homer.  JOHNSON.  ’Well, Sir, this is just what I always maintained.  He has found names, and stories, and phrases, nay, passages in old songs, and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem.’  If this was the case, I observed, it was wrong to publish it as a poem in six books.  JOHNSON.  ’Yes, Sir; and to ascribe it to a time too when the Highlanders knew nothing of books, and nothing of six;—­or perhaps were got the length of counting six.  We have been told, by Condamine, of a nation that could count no more than four[668].  This should be told to Monboddo; it would help him.  There is as much charity in helping a man down-hill, as in helping him up-hill.’  BOSWELL.  ’I don’t think there is as much charity.’  JOHNSON.  ’Yes, Sir, if his tendency be downwards.  Till he is at the bottom he flounders; get him once there, and he is quiet.  Swift tells, that Stella had a trick, which she learned from Addison, of encouraging a man in absurdity, instead of endeavouring to extricate him[669].’

Mr. M’Queen’s answers to the inquiries concerning Ossian were so unsatisfactory, that I could not help observing, that, were he examined in a court of justice, he would find himself under a necessity of being more explicit.  JOHNSON.  ’Sir, he has told Blair a little too much, which is published[670]; and he sticks to it.  He is so much at the head of things here, that he has never been accustomed to be closely examined; and so he goes on quite smoothly.’  BOSWELL.  ’He has never had any body to work[671] him.’  JOHNSON.  ’No, Sir; and a man is seldom disposed to work himself; though he ought to work himself, to be sure.’  Mr. M’Queen made no reply[672].

Having talked of the strictness with which witnesses are examined in courts of justice, Dr. Johnson told us, that Garrick, though accustomed to face multitudes, when produced as a witness in Westminster-hall, was so disconcerted by a new mode of public appearance, that he could not understand what was asked[673].  It was a cause where an actor claimed a free benefit; that is to say, a benefit without paying the expence of the house; but the meaning of the term was disputed.  Garrick was asked, ‘Sir, have you a free benefit?’ ‘Yes.’  ‘Upon what terms have you it?’ ‘Upon-the terms-of-a free benefit.’  He was dismissed as one from whom no information could be obtained.  Dr. Johnson is often too hard on our friend Mr. Garrick.  When I asked him why he did not mention him in the Preface to his Shakspeare[674] he said, ’Garrick has been liberally paid for