any other to be taken into consideration, wanting, as he did, the aid of those intelligent signs, or insinuations, which the v countenance displays in social converse ; and which, in their slightest degree, influence and regulate the manners of the polite, t even of the common observer.
And to his defective hearing, perhaps, his unaccommodating manners may be equally ascribed, which not only precluded him 1 from the perception of the expressive tones of the voice of others, V but from hearing the boisterous sound of his own.
Under such disadvantages, it was not much to be wonder'd at that Dr. Johnson should have commited \sic\ many blunders and absurdities, and excited surprise and resentment in company ; one in particular I remember to have heard related of him many years since. Being in company with Mr. Garrick and some others, who were unknown to Dr. Johnson, he was saying some thing tending to the disparagement of the character or of the works of a gentleman present I have forgot the particulars ; on which Mr. Garrick touched his foot under the table ; but he still went on, and Garrick, much alarmed, touched him a second time, and, I believe, the third ; at last Johnson exclaimed, ' David, David, is it you ? What makes you tread on my toes so ? ' This little anecdote, perhaps, indicates as much the want of prudence in Dr. Johnson as the want of sight. But had he at first seen Garrick's expressive countenance x , and (probably) the embarrassment of the rest of the company on the occasion, it doubtless would not have happened.
Dr. Johnson was very ambitious of excelling in common acquirements, as well as the uncommon, and particularly in feats of activity 2 . One day, as he was walking in Gunisbury Park (or Paddock) 3 with some gentlemen and ladies, who were admiring the extraordinary size of some of the trees, one of the gentlemen said that, when he was a boy, he made nothing of climbing
1 See ante, i. 457, where Murphy 2 See ante, i. 224, for his swimming ;
writes of Johnson's slighting Gar- Life, i. 477, n. I, for his rolling down
rick : ' The fact was, Johnson could a hill ; and ii. 299, for his courage
not see the passions as they rose and and strength.
chased one another in the varied 3 Perhaps the grounds of Gunners- features of that expressive face.' bury House.
(swarming
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