were deeply visible[1]. He also wore his hair[2], which was straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he often had. seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprize and ridicule[3]. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, 'this is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.'
Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson[4], and her person and manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of understanding and talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary passion; and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand,
- ↑ According to Malone, Reynolds said that 'he had paid attention to Johnson's Hmbs; and far from being unsightly, he deemed them well formed.' Prior's Malone, p. 175. Mrs. Piozzi says:—'His stature was remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large; his features were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance somewhat unusual; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, though of a light-grey colour, 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.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 297. See Post, end of the book, and Boswell's Hebrides, near the beginning.
- ↑ If Johnson wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him to ridicule. Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote, tells us that Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though 'it often exposed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his sense. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone for not visiting me so often as usual, he said, "he was ashamed to face his enemies in the gate."'
- ↑ See Post, 1739.
- ↑ Mrs. Johnson was born on Feb. 4, 1688-9. Malone. She was married on July 9, 1735, in St. Werburgh's Church, Derby, as is shewn by the following copy of the marriage register: '1735, July 9, Mard Samll Johnson of ye parish of St Mary's in Litchfield, and Elizth Porter of ye parish of St Phillip in Burmingham.' Notes and Queries, 4th S. vi. 44. At the time of their marriage, therefore, she was forty-six, and Johnson only two months short of twenty-six.
