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who seizing one in one hand by the cuff of the neck, the other in the other hand, faid gravely, Come, gentlemen! where's your difficulty? put one dog out at the door, and I will shew this fierce gentleman the way out of the window :" which, lifting up the mastiff and the sash, he contrived to do very expeditioufly, and much to the fatisfaction of the affrighted company. We inquired as to the truth of this curious recital. "The dogs have been somewhat magnified, I believe Sir (was the reply): they were, as I remember, two stout young pointers; but the story has gained but little."

One reason why Mr. Johnson's memory was so particularly exact, might be derived from his rigid attention to veracity; being always resolved to relate every fact as it stood, he looked even on the smaller parts of life with minute attention, and remembered such passages as escape cursory and common obfervers. "A story (fays he) is a specimen of human manners, and derives its fole value from its truth. When Foote has told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow: when Reynolds tells me something, I confider myself as poffefsfed of an idea the more."

Mr. Johnson liked a frolic or a jest well enough; though he had strange serious rules about it too: and very angry was he if any body offered to be merry when he was disposed to be grave. "You have an ill-founded notion (faid he) that it is clever to turn matters off with a joke (as the phrase is); whereas nothing produces enmity so certain, as one person's shewing a disposition to be merry when another is inclined to be either serious or displeased.

One may gather from this how he felt, when his Irish friend Grierson, hearing him enumerate the qualities necessary to the formation of a poet, began a comical parody upon his ornamented harangue in praise of a cook, concluding with this observation, that he who dressed a good dinner was a more excellent and a more useful member of society than he who wrote a good poem. "And in this opinion (faid Mr. Johnson in reply) all the dogs in the town will join you."

Of this Mr. Grierson I have heard him relate many droll stories, much to his advantage as a wit, together with some facts more difficult to be accounted for; as avarice never was reckoned among the vices of the laughing world. But Johnson's various life, and spirit of vigilance to learn and treasure up every peculiarity of manner, sentiment, or general conduct, made his company, when he chose to relate anecdotes of people he had formerly known, exquifitely amusing and comical. It is indeed inconceivable what strange occurrences he had feen, and what surprising things he could tell when in a communicative humour. It is by no means my business to relate memoirs of his acquaintance; but it will ferve to shew the character of Johnfon himself, when I inform those who never knew him, that no man told a story with so good a grace, or knew fo well what would make an effect upon his auditors. When he raised contributions for fome distressed author, or wit in want, he often made us all more than amends by diverting defcriptions of the lives they were then passing in corners unseen by any body but himfelf; and that odd old furgeon whom he kept in his house to tend the out-pensioners, and of whom he said most truly and fublimely, that

In mifery's darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish pours her groan,
And lonely want retires to die.

I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely I think be later than 1765 or 1766, that he was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, faid, he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which when finished was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr. Johnson therefore set away the bottle, and went to the bookfeller, recommending the performance, and defiring some immediate relief; which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment.