Page:Boswell - Life of Johnson.djvu/82

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48
His eyesight.
[Aetat. 3.


Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the scrophula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much, that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from that of the other. There is amongst his prayers, one inscribed 'When my EYE was restored to its use[1],' which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it[2]. I supposed him to be only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain which I observed resembled a cone, he corrected my inaccuracy, by shewing me, that it was indeed pointed at the top, but that one side of it was larger than the other[3]. And the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree, that no man was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of female dress[4]. When I found that he saw the romantick beauties of Islam, in Derbyshire, much better than I did, I

    This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is, indeed, a fiction. Boswell.

  1. Prayers and Meditations, p. 27. Boswell.
  2. Speaking himself of the imperfection of one of his eyes, he said to Dr. Burney, 'the dog was never good for much.' Malone.
  3. Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. i, 1773.
  4. 'No accidental position of a riband,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'escaped him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of propriety.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 287. Miss Burney .says:—'Notwithstanding Johnson is sometimes so absent and always so near-sighted, he scrutinizes into every part of almost everybody's appearance [at Streatham].' And again she writes:—'His blindness is as much the effect of absence [of mind] as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times. He can see the colour of a lady's top-knot, for he often finds fault with it.' Mme. D'Arblays Diary, i. 85, ii. 174. He could, when well, distinguish the hour on Lichfield town-clock. Post, p. 74.
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