SAMUEL JOHNSON.

HIS WORDS AND HIS WAYS.

APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES.

IN YOUTH.-Miss Porter told me that when he was first introduced to her mother his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind; and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. -Boswell.

RATHER HANDSOME.-Johnson's countenance, when in a good-humor, was not disagreeable:—his face clear, his complexion good, and his features not ill formed, many ladies have thought they might not be unattractive when he was young. Much misrepresentation has prevailed on this subject.-Thomas Percy.

ODD AND PECULIAR.-I spent yesterday with Johnson, the celebrated author of the "Rambler," who is of all others the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted.-Dr. Dodd.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.-His figure was large and well formed, and his countenance of the cast of an ancient statue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and somewhat uncouth by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that distemper which it was once imagined the royal touch could cure, and by a slovenly mode of dress. He had the use only of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as far as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate. So morbid was his temperament that he never knew the natural joy of a free and vigorous use of his limbs; when he walked, it was like the struggling gait of one in fetters: when he rode, he had no command or direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a balloon. That with his constitution and habits of life he should have lived seventy-five years, is a proof that an inherent vivida vis is a powerful preservative of the human frame.—Boswell.

COMPLEXION AND EYES. His features were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged, though the original complexion had certainly been fair: his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, though of a light gray color, were so wild, so piercing, and at times' so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.-Mrs. Piozzi.

WALK AND BEARING.-When first I remember Johnson, I used to see him sometimes at a little distance from the house, coming to call on my father; his look directed downward, or rather in such abstraction as to have no direction. His walk was heavy, but he got on at a great rate, his left arm always placed across his breast, so as to bring the hand under his chin; and he walked wide, as if to support his weight. Getting out of a hackney - coach, which had set him down in Fleet Street, my brother Henry says, he made his way up Bolt Court in the zig-zag direction of a flash

of lightning; submitting his course only to the deflections imposed by the impossibility of going farther to right or left. His clothes hung loose, and the pocket on the right hand swung violently, the lining of his coat being always visible. I can now call to mind his brown hand, his metal sleeve-buttons, and my surprise at seeing him with plain wristbands, when all gentlemen wore ruffles; his coat-sleeve, being very wide, showed his linen almost to his elbow. His wig in common was cut and bushy; if by chance he had one that had been dressed in separate curls, it gave him a disagreeable look, not suited to his years or character.-Miss L. M. Hawkins.

DRESS AND APPEARANCE.-He is, indeed, very ill-favored. Yet he has naturally a noble figure; tall, stout, grand, and authoritative: but he stoops horribly; his back is quite round his mouth is continually opening and shutting, as if he were chewing something; he has a singular method of twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands: his vast body is in constant agitation, see-sawing backward and forward: his feet are never a moment quiet; and his whole great person looked often as if it were going to roll itself, quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor. His dress, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on all his best becomes, for he was engaged to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. Montagu's, was as much out of the common road as his figure. He had a large, full, bushy wig, a snuff-color coat, with gold buttons (or, peradventure, brass), but no ruffles to his doughty fists; and not, I suppose, to be taken for a Blue, though going to the Blue Queen, he had on very coarse black worsted stockings.— Madame D'Arblay.

JOHNSON AT HOME.-The day after I wrote my last letter to you I was introduced to Mr. Johnson by a friend: we passed through three very dirty rooms to a little one that

looked like an old counting-house, where this great man was sat at his breakfast. The furniture of this room was a very large deal writing-desk, an old walnut-tree table, and five ragged chairs of four different sets. I was very much struck with Mr. Johnson's appearance, and could hardly help thinking him a madman for some time, as he sat waving over his breakfast like a lunatic. He is a very large man, and was dressed in a dirty brown coat and waistcoat, with breeches that were brown also (though they had been crimson), and an old black wig: his shirt collar and sleeves were unbuttoned; his stockings were down about his feet, which had on them, by way of slippers, an old pair of shoes.-Ozias Humphry.

JOHNSON ABROAD.—Mr. Sheridan at one time lived in Bedford Street, opposite Henrietta Street, which ranges with the south side of Covent Garden, so that the prospect lies open the whole way, free of interruption. We were standing together in the drawing-room, expecting Johnson, who was to dine there. Mr. Sheridan asked me, could I see the length of the Garden? "No, sir." "Take out your operaglass, Johnson is coming; you may know him by his gait." I perceived him at a good distance, working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort of measured step. At that time the broad flagging at each side the streets was not universally adopted, and stone posts were in fashion to prevent the annoyance of carriages. Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe, he deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when he had got at some distance, he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately returning back, carefully performed the accustomed ceremony, and resumed his former course, not omitting one till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd it might appear, was his constant practice; but why or wherefore he could not inform me.-Whyte's Miscel. Nova.

EXPRESSIVE FACE.-His face was capable of great expression, both in respect to intelligence and mildness, as all those can witness who have seen him in the flow of conversation, or under the influence of grateful feelings.—Anony

mous.

VARIOUS PECULIARITIES.-Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever since I knew him. I was certain that he was frequently uttering pious ejaculations; for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly overheard. His friend, Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says,

"That Davies hath a very pretty wife,"

when Dr. Johnson muttered, "lead us not into temptation," used, with waggish and gallant humor, to whisper Mrs. Davies, "You, my dear, are the cause of this."

He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to disentangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture; for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion. A strange instance of something of this nature, even when on horseback, happened when he was in the Isle of Skye. Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed him to go a good