142 Anecdotes by Miss Hawkins.
In his colloquial intercourse, Johnson's compliments were studied, and therefore lost their effect : his head dipped lower ; the semicircle in which it revolved was of greater extent ; and his roar was deeper in its tone when he meant to be civil. His movement in reading, which he did with great rapidity, was humorously described after his death, by a lady, who said, that
- his head swung seconds V
The usual initial sentences of his conversation led some to imagine that to resemble him was as easy as to mimic him, and that, if they began with ' Why, Sir/ or ' I know no reason/ or f If any man chooses to think/ or ' If you mean to say/ they must, of course, * talk Johnson 2 .' That his style might be imi tated, is true ; and that its strong features made it easier to lay hold on it than on a milder style, no one will dispute. (Vol. i. P.
��For the following trifling circumstances connected with Dr. Johnson I am indebted to my younger brother. ' Speaking of reading and study, I heard him say, that he would not ask a man to give up his important interests for them, because it would not be fair ; but that, if any man would employ in reading that time which he would otherwise waste, he would answer for it, if he were a man of ordinary endowment, that he would make a sensible man. " He might not," said he, " make a Bentley, but
1 ' He commonly held his head to * Imitation is of two sorts ; the one side towards his right shoulder, first is when we force to our own and shook it in a tremulous manner.' purposes the thoughts of others ; the Life, i. 485. second consists in copying the im-
2 For imitations of him see ib. ii. perfections or blemishes of celebrated 326, n. 5, and for his ' No, Sir,' ib. iv. authors. I have seen a play pro- 315. fessedly writ in the style of Shake-
- We see the eyes and mouth speare, wherein the resemblance lay
moving with convulsive twitches ; we in one single line,
see the heavy form rolling ; we hear ' And so good morrow t' ye, good
it puffing ; and then comes the master lieutenant.'
"Why, sir ! " and the "What then, Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xxiii. 53.
sir ? " and the " No, sir ! " and the According to Lamb the writer of
"You don't see your way through this play was Rowe. Letters of
the question, sir ! " ' Macaulay's Charles Lamb, ed. 1888, i. 138.
Essays, ed. 1843, i. 407. 3 ' Snatches of reading (said John-
'He
�� �
