ABSTRACT
The motivation behind this letter-the nature of the “foolish and impudent note,” now lost, that prompted it-has been the subject of much speculation. Macpherson, it seems, threatened Johnson with bodily harm, or at least Johnson perceived such a threat, prompting him to carry “an oak-plant of a tremendous size” to ward off attacks. However chimerical the threat, the stick was real enough. “Its height,” writes Hawkins, “was upwards of six feet, and from about an inch in diameter at the lower end, increased to near three: this he kept in his bed-chamber, so near the chair in which he constantly sat, as to be within reach.”2 The image of the 63-year-old Johnson wielding a staff against Scottish thugs in London’s dark alleys is in equal measure farcical and pathetic.
