I mentioned this as a remarkable proof how liable the mind of man is to credulity, when not guarded by such strict examination as that which Dr. Johnson habitually practised.[1060]The talents and integrity of the gentleman who made the remark, are unquestionable; yet, had not Dr. Johnson made him advert to the consideration, that he who does not understand a language, cannot know that something which is recited to him is in that language, he might have believed, and reported to this hour, that he had ’heard a great part of Fingal repeated in the original.’

For the satisfaction of those on the north of the Tweed, who may think Dr. Johnson’s account of Caledonian credulity and inaccuracy too strong,[1061] it is but fair to add, that he admitted the same kind of ready belief might be found in his own country.  ’He would undertake, (he said) to write an epick poem on the story of Robin Hood,[1062] and half England, to whom the names and places he should mention in it are familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from their earliest years.’

One of his objections to the authenticity of Fingal, during the conversation at Ulinish,[1063] is omitted in my Journal, but I perfectly recollect it.  ’Why is not the original deposited in some publick library, instead of exhibiting attestations of its existence?[1064] Suppose there were a question in a court of justice, whether a man be dead or alive:  You aver he is alive, and you bring fifty witnesses to swear it:  I answer, “Why do you not produce the man?"’ This is an argument founded upon one of the first principles of the law of evidence, which Gilbert[1065] would have held to be irrefragable.

I do not think it incumbent on me to give any precise decided opinion upon this question, as to which I believe more than some, and less than others.[1066]

The subject appears to have now become very uninteresting to the publick.  That Fingal is not from beginning to end a translation from the Gallick, but that some passages have been supplied by the editor to connect the whole, I have heard admitted by very warm advocates for its authenticity.  If this be the case, why are not these distinctly ascertained?  Antiquaries, and admirers of the work, may complain, that they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy gentleman, whose wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their reputed children was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to declare which of them it was, she answered, ‘That you shall never know;’ and expired, leaving him in irremediable doubt as to them all.

I beg leave now to say something upon second sight, of which I have related two instances,[1067] as they impressed my mind at the time.  I own, I returned from the Hebrides with a considerable degree of faith in the many stories of that kind which I heard with a too easy acquiescence, without any close examination of the evidence:  but, since that time, my belief in those stories has been much weakened,[1068] by reflecting on the careless inaccuracy of narrative in common matters, from which we may certainly conclude that there may be the same in what is more extraordinary.  It is but just, however, to add, that the belief in second sight is not peculiar to the Highlands and Isles.[1069]