him and the chair into the pit. Foote, who so
successfully revived the old comedy, by exhibiting living characters,
had resolved to imitate Johnson on the stage, expecting great profits
from his ridicule of so celebrated a man. Johnson being informed of his
intention, and being at dinner at Mr. Thomas Davies's the bookseller,
from whom I had the story, he asked Mr. Davies 'what was the common
price of an oak stick;' and being answered six-pence, 'Why then, Sir,
(said he,) give me leave to send your servant to purchase me a shilling
one. I'll have a double quantity; for I am told Foote means to take me
off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not do it with
impunity. Davies took care to acquaint Foote of this, which effectually
checked the wantonness of the mimick. Mr. Macpherson's menaces made
Johnson provide himself with the same implement of defence; and had he
been attacked, I have no doubt that, old as he was, he would have made
his corporal prowess be felt as much as his intellectual.

His Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland is a most valuable
performance. Johnson's grateful acknowledgements of kindnesses received
in the course of this tour, completely refute the brutal reflections
which have been thrown out against him, as if he had made an ungrateful
return; and his delicacy in sparing in his book those who we find from
his letters to Mrs. Thrale were just objects of censure, is much to be
admired. His candour and amiable disposition is conspicuous from his
conduct, when informed by Mr. Macleod, of Rasay, that he had committed
a mistake, which gave that gentleman some uneasiness. He wrote him
a courteous and kind letter, and inserted in the news-papers an
advertisement, correcting the mistake.

As to his prejudice against the Scotch, which I always ascribed to that
nationality which he observed in THEM, he said to the same gentleman,
'When I find a Scotchman, to whom an Englishman is as a Scotchman,
that Scotchman shall be as an Englishman to me.' His intimacy with many
gentlemen of Scotland, and his employing so many natives of that country
as his amanuenses, prove that his prejudice was not virulent; and I have
deposited in the British Museum, amongst other pieces of his writing,
the following note in answer to one from me, asking if he would meet me
at dinner at the Mitre, though a friend of mine, a Scotchman, was to be
there:--

'Mr. Johnson does not see why Mr. Boswell should suppos