tion to caricature him on the stage he
suddenly at dinner asked Davies, a friend of Foote's, "what was the
common price of an oak stick," and being answered sixpence, "Why then,
sir (said he), give me leave to send your servant to purchase {116} 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." The threat was sufficient; as Johnson said,
"he knew I would have broken his bones." Years afterwards Foote,
perhaps in half-conscious revenge, amused himself by holding Johnson up
to ridicule in a private company at Edinburgh. Unluckily for him
Boswell was present and naturally felt Foote's behaviour an act of
rudeness to himself. So he intervened and pleaded that Johnson must be
allowed to have some sterling wit, adding that he had heard him say a
very good thing about Foote himself. "Ah," replied the unwary Foote,
"my old friend Sam; no man says better things: do let us have it." On
which Boswell related how he had once said to Johnson when they were
talking of Foote, "Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?" to which
Johnson had replied, "I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an
infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an
infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject."
Boswell's story was as effective as his master's stick. There was no
more question that night of taking off Johnson: Foote had enough to do
to defend himself against the cannonade of laughter that Boswell had
brought upon him. {117} A man of the mettle Johnson shows in those
stories was certain to have no more fears about defending the public
than about defending himself. So when he thought the so-called poems
of Ossian a fabrication he said so everywhere without hesitation; and
when their editor or author Macpherson, finding other methods fail,
tried to silence him by bluster and threats, he received the reply
which is only less famous than its author's letter to Lord Chesterfield.

"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 reason