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

way about, rather than cross a particular alley in Leicesterfields; but this Sir Joshua imputed to his having had some disagreeable recollection associated with it.

That the most minute singularities which belonged to him, and made very observable parts of his appearance and manner, may not be omitted, it is requisite to mention that while talking, or even musing, as he sat in his chair, he commonly held his head to one side toward his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backward and forward, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction with the palm of his, hand. In the intervals of articulating, he made various sounds with his mouth; sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue play backward from the roof of his mouth, as if chuckling like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, too, too, too, all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale. This, I suppose, was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a contemptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his opponent fly like chaff before the wind.-Boswell.

CONVULSIVE MOVEMENTS.-Those motions or tricks of Dr. Johnson are improperly called convulsions. He could sit motionless, when he was told so to do, as well as any other man. My opinion is, that it proceeded from a habit, which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions, and those actions always appeared to me as if they were meant to reprobate some part of his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged in conversation, such thoughts were sure to rush into his mind;

and, for this reason, any company, any employment whatever, he preferred to being alone. The great business of his life, he said, was to escape from himself; this disposition he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company.

One instance of his absence of mind and particularity, as it is characteristic of the man, may be worth relating. When he and I took a journey together into the West, we visited the late Mr. Banks, of Dorsetshire; the conversation turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up his left leg, and stretching his right still farther on. The old gentleman observing him, went up to him, and in a very courteous manner assured him, though it was not a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The doctor started from his reverie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but spoke not a word.—Sir Joshua Reynolds.

His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy; he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of the nature of that distemper called "St. Vitus's dance."Boswell.

The house on the right at the bottom of Beaufort Buildings was occupied by Mr. Chamberlaine, Mrs. Sheridan's eldest brother, by whom Johnson was often invited in the snug way with the family party. At one of those social meetings Johnson, as usual, sat next the lady of the house; the dessert still continuing, and the ladies in no haste to withdraw, Mrs. Chamberlaine had moved a little back from the table, and was carelessly dangling her foot backward and forward as she sat, enjoying "The feast of reason and the flow of soul." Johnson, the while, in a moment of abstraction, was convulsively working his hand up and down,

which the lady observing, she roguishly edged her foot within his reach, and, as might partly have been expected, Johnson clutched hold of it and drew off her shoe; she started, and hastily exclaimed, "Oh, fie! Mr. Johnson!" The company at first knew not what to make of it; but one of them, perceiving the joke, tittered. Johnson, not improbably aware of the trick, apologized. "Nay, madam, recollect yourself; I know not that I have justly incurred your rebuke; the motion was involuntary, and the action not intentionally rude."-Whyte's Miscel. Nova.

I believe no one has described his extraordinary gestures or antics with his hands and feet, particularly when passing over the threshold of a door, or rather before he would venture to pass through any door-way. On entering Sir Joshua's house with poor Mrs. Williams, a blind lady who lived with him, he would quit her hand, or else whirl her about on the steps as he whirled and twisted about to perform his gesticulations; and as soon as he had finished, he would give a sudden spring, and make such an extensive stride over the threshold as if he was trying for a wager how far he could stride; Mrs. Williams standing groping about outside the door, unless the servant took hold of her hand to conduct her in, leaving Dr. Johnson to perform at the parlor door much the same exercise over again.

But it was not only at the entrance of a door that he exhibited such strange manœuvres, but across a room, or in the street with company he has stopped on a sudden, as if he had recollected his task, and began to perform it there, gathering a mob round him; and when he had finished, would hasten to his companion (who probably had walked on before) with an air of great satisfaction that he had done his duty. One Sunday morning, as I was walking with him. in Twickenham meadows, he began his antics, both with his feet and hands, with the latter as if he was holding the reins of a horse like a jockey on full speed. But to describe the