��was conversant in canine beauty and excellence, how the dogs quarrelled, and fastening on each other, alarmed all the company except Johnson, who seizing one in one hand by the cuff of the neck, the other in the other hand, said gravely, ' Come, gentle men ! 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 expeditiously, and much to the satisfaction 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 V
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 2 , he looked even on the smaller parts of life with minute attention, and remembered such passages as escape cursory and common observers. ' A story (says he) is a specimen of human manners, and derives its sole value from its truth. When Foote 3 has told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow : when Reynolds tells me something, I consider myself as possessed 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 (said he) that it is clever to turn matters off with a joke (as the phrase is) ; whereas nothing
1 'Topham Beauclerk told me,' 2 7^.iii.228and/^/,p. 297. 'Some
writes Boswell, ' that at his house in indulgence, however, to lying or fic-
the country, two large ferocious dogs tion is given in humorous stories,
were righting. Dr. Johnson looked because it is there really agreeable
steadily at them for a little while ; and and entertaining, and truth is not of
then, as one would separate two little any importance.' Hume's Essays,
boys, who were foolishly hurting each ed. 1770, iv. 138.
other, he ran up to them, and cuffed 3 ' Foote,' said Johnson, ' is quite
their heads till he drove them impartial, for he tells lies of every-
asunder.' Life, v. 329. body.' Life, ii. 434. See post, p. 265.
VOL. I. Q produces
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