I had not forgotten Mrs. Thrale’s relation (which she afterwards printed in her “Anecdotes”) that “Mr. Johnson was very conversant in the art of attack and defence by boxing, which science he had learned from his uncle Andrew, I believe; and I have heard him discourse upon the age when people were received, and when rejected, in the schools once held for that brutal amusement, much to the admiration of those who had no expectation of his skill in such matters, from the sight of a figure which precluded all possibility of personal prowess.” This lively lady was, however, too ready to deviate from exact authenticity of narration; and, further, I reflected that, whatever the propensities of his youth, he who had now risen to be called by Dr. Smollett the Great Cham of literature might well be affronted if asked to countenance a prize-fight. Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained for him, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means of that I hoped I should gain my point. I therefore, while we were sitting quietly by ourselves at his house in an evening, took occasion to open my plan thus:—“Mr. Cochran, sir, sends his respectful compliments to you, and would be happy if you would do him the honour to visit his entertainment at the Stadium on Thursday next?” JOHNSON.—“Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Cochran. I will go——” BOSWELL.—“Provided, sir, I suppose, that the entertainment is of a kind agreeable to you?” JOHNSON.—“What do you mean, sir? What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what kind of entertainment he is to offer his friends?” BOSWELL.—“But if it were a prize-fight?” JOHNSON.—“Well, sir, and what then?” BOSWELL.—“It might bring queer company.” JOHNSON.—“My dear friend, let us have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with you; but really it is treating me strangely to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever occasionally.” Thus I secured him.