ld shoot him
if he did.' Johnson, who could not bear any thing like swearing,
angrily replied, 'He was NOT a DAMNED fool: he only thought too well of
Campbell. He did not believe Campbell would be such a DAMNED scoundrel,
as to do so DAMNED a thing.' His emphasis on DAMNED, accompanied with
frowning looks, reproved his opponent's want of decorum in HIS presence.

During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson seemed to be more uniformly
social, cheerful, and alert, than I had almost ever seen him. He was
prompt on great occasions and on small. Taylor, who praised every thing
of his own to excess; in short, 'whose geese were all swans,' as the
proverb says, expatiated on the excellence of his bull-dog, which,
he told us, was 'perfectly well shaped.' Johnson, after examining the
animal attentively, thus repressed the vain-glory of our host:--'No,
Sir, he is NOT well shaped; for there is not the quick transition
from the thickness of the fore-part, to the TENUITY--the thin
part--behind,--which a bull-dog ought to have.' This TENUITY was the
only HARD WORD that I heard him use during this interview, and it will
be observed, he instantly put another expression in its place. Taylor
said, a small bull-dog was as good as a large one. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir;
for, in proportion to his size, he has strength: and your argument would
prove, that a good bull-dog may be as small as a mouse.' It was amazing
how he entered with perspicuity and keenness upon every thing that
occurred in conversation. Most men, whom I know, would no more think of
discussing a question about a bull-dog, than of attacking a bull.

I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning
the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular
may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every
little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the
true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the
splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule,
or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my Journal
of a Tour to the Hebrides; yet it still sails unhurt along the stream of
time, and, as an attendant upon Johnson,

'Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale.'

One morning after breakfast, when the sun shone bright, we walked
out together, and 'pored' for some time with placid indolence upon an
artificial water-fall, which Dr. Taylor had made