164 Anecdotes of Johnson
will that fellow never have done talking poetry to me x ? ' He recovered his senses before morning, but spoke little after this. His heart, however, was not unemployed, as by his fixed atten tion, and the motion of his lips, it was evident he was pouring out his soul in prayer. (Page 79.)
Dr. Johnson's face was composed of large coarse features, which, from a studious turn, when composed, looked sluggish, yet awful and contemplative. The head at the front of this book is esteemed a good likeness ; indeed so much, that when the Doctor saw the drawing, he exclaimed, ' Well, thou art an ugly fellow, but still, I believe thou art like the original V The Doctor sat for this picture to Mr. Trotter 3 , in February 1782, at the request of Mr. Kearsley, who had just furnished him with a complete list of all his works, for he confessed he had forgot more than half what he had written 4 .
His face, however, 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. I am the more confirmed in this opinion, by the authority of a celebrated French Physiognomist, who has, in a late publication on his art 5 , given two different etchings of Dr. Johnson's head, to shew the correspondence between the countenance and the mind.
1 Perhaps he was haunted by the * Hayter,' wrote Macaulay, ' has thought of the writer of whom he painted me for his picture of the said : ' I never did the man an House of Commons. I cannot judge injury ; but he would persist in of his performance. I can only say, reading his tragedy to me. 3 Life, as Charles the Second did on a iv. 244, n. 2. similar occasion, " Odds fish, if I am
2 Mme. D'Arblay records that like this, I am an ugly fellow." ' Tre- Johnson saw her examining ' a small velyan's Macaulay, ed. 1877, ii.i6. engraving of his portrait from the 3 Trotter had worked with Blake, picture of Reynolds. He began see- Gilchrist's Slake, i. 33, 57. This sawing for a moment or two in picture is, I believe, the one in the silence, and then, with a ludicrous Library of Pembroke College.
half laugh, peeping over her shoulder, 4 Life,\. 112; iii. 321.
he called out : ' Ah ha ! Sam 5 Lavater's Essay on Physiognomy.
Johnson ! I see thee ! and an Life, iv. 422. In the English transla- ugly dog thou art!' Memoirs of tion, published in 1789, a third etching Dr. Burney, ii. 180. is given, i. 194.
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