s, I think, is a
true copy.'

'MR. JAMES MACPHERSON,--I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any
violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do
for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred
from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

'What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I
think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons
to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your
abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of
your morals, inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to
what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.'

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

Mr. Macpherson little knew 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 aweful dread of death, or
rather, 'of something after death;' and what rational man, who seriously
thinks of quitting all that he has ever known, and going into a new and
unknown state of being, can be without that dread? But his fear was from
reflection; his courage natural. His fear, in that one instance, was the
result of philosophical and religious consideration. He feared death,
but he feared nothing else, not even what might occasion death.
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; and at another time,
when told of the danger there was that a gun might burst if charged with
many balls, he put in six or seven, and fired it off against a wall. Mr.
Langton told me, that when they were swimming together near Oxford, he
cautioned Dr. Johnson against a pool, which was reckoned particularly
dangerous; upon which Johnson directly swam into it. He told me himself
that one night he was attacked in the street by four men, to whom he
would not yield, but kept them all at bay, till the watch came up,
and carried both him and them to the round-house. 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