seemed to understand Dr. Johnson very well, and not to
consider him in the light that a certain person did, who being struck,
or rather stunned by his voice and manner, when he was afterwards asked
what he thought of him, answered. 'He's a tremendous companion.'

Johnson told me, that 'Taylor was a very sensible acute man, and had a
strong mind; that he had great activity in some respects, and yet such
a sort of indolence, that if you should put a pebble upon his
chimney-piece, you would find it there, in the same state, a year
afterwards.'

And here is the proper place to give an account of Johnson's humane
and zealous interference in behalf of the Reverend Dr. William Dodd,
formerly Prebendary of Brecon, and chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty;
celebrated as a very popular preacher, an encourager of charitable
institutions, and authour of a variety of works, chiefly theological.
Having unhappily contracted expensive habits of living, partly
occasioned by licentiousness of manners, he in an evil hour, when
pressed by want of money, and dreading an exposure of his circumstances,
forged a bond of which he attempted to avail himself to support his
credit, flattering himself with hopes that he might be able to repay its
amount without being detected. The person, whose name he thus rashly and
criminally presumed to falsify, was the Earl of Chesterfield, to whom
he had been tutor, and who, he perhaps, in the warmth of his feelings,
flattered himself would have generously paid the money in case of
an alarm being taken, rather than suffer him to fall a victim to the
dreadful consequences of violating the law against forgery, the most
dangerous crime in a commercial country; but the unfortunate divine had
the mortification to find that he was mistaken. His noble pupil appeared
against him, and he was capitally convicted.

Johnson told me that Dr. Dodd was very little acquainted with him,
having been but once in his company, many years previous to this period
(which was precisely the state of my own acquaintance with Dodd); but
in his distress he bethought himself of Johnson's persuasive power of
writing, if haply it might avail to obtain for him the Royal Mercy.
He did not apply to him directly, but, extraordinary as it may seem,
through the late Countess of Harrington, who wrote a letter to Johnson,
asking him to employ his pen in favour of Dodd. Mr. Allen, the printer,
who was Johnson's landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-