Mr. Macpherson knew little the character of Dr. Johnson if he supposed that he could be easily intimidated, for no man was ever more remarkable for personal courage.  He had, indeed, an awful dread of death, or, rather, “of something after death”; and he once said to me, “The fear of death is so much natural to man that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it,” and confessed that “he had never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him.”  But his fear was from reflection, his courage natural.  Many instances of his resolution may be mentioned.  One day, at Mr. Beauclerk’s house in the country, when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them and beat them till they separated.

At another time, when Foote threatened to take him off on the stage, he sent out for an extra large oak stick; and this mere threat, repeated by Davies to Foote, effectually checked the wantonness of the mimic.  On yet another occasion, in the playhouse at Lichfield, as Mr. Garrick informed me, Johnson having for a moment quitted a chair which was placed for him between the side scenes, a gentleman took possession of it, and when Johnson on his return civilly demanded his seat, rudely refused to give it up; upon which Johnson laid hold of it, and tossed him and the chair into the pit.

My revered friend had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America.  As early as 1769 he had said to them:  “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”  He had recently published, at the desire of those in power, a pamphlet entitled “Taxation no Tyranny; an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress.”  Of this performance I avoided to talk with him, having formed a clear and settled opinion against the doctrine of its title.

In the autumn Dr. Johnson went to Ashbourne to France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale and Mr. Baretti, which lasted about two months.  But he did not get into any higher acquaintance; and Foote, who was at Paris at the time with him, used to give a description of my friend while there and of French astonishment at his figure, manner, and dress, which was abundantly ludicrous.  He was now a Doctor of Laws of Oxford, his university having conferred that degree on him by diploma in the spring.

X.—­Johnson’s “Seraglio"

A circumstance which could not fail to be very pleasing to Johnson occurred in 1777.  The tragedy of “Sir Thomas Overbury,” written by his early companion in London, Richard Savage, was brought out, with alterations, at Covent Garden Theatre, on February 1; and the prologue to it, written by Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, introduced an elegant compliment to Johnson on his “Dictionary.”  Johnson was pleased with young Mr. Sheridan’s liberality of sentiment, and willing to show that though estranged from the father he could acknowledge the brilliant merit of the son, he proposed him, and secured his election, as a member of the Literary Club, observing that “he who has written the two best comedies of his age ["The Rivals” and “The Duenna”] is surely a considerable man.”