Johnson, ashamed of having deceived him, * but I wrote them in the garret where I then lived.' His predecessor in this oratorical fabrication was Guthrie T ; his successor in the Magazine was Hawkesworth 2 . It is said, that to prove himself equal to this employment (but there is not leisure for the adjustment of chronology) in the judgment of Cave, he undertook the Life of Savage 3 , which he asserted (not incredible of him), and valued himself upon it, that he wrote in six and thirty hours 4 . In one night he also composed, after finishing an evening in Holborn, his Hermit of Teneriff 5 . He sat up a whole night to compose the preface to the Preceptor 6 .
His eye-sight was not good ; but he never wore spectacles, not on account of such a ridiculous vow as Swift made not to use them 7 , but because he was assured they would be of no service to him. He once declared, that he ' never saw the human face divine 8 .' He saw better with one eye than the other, which, however, was not like that of Camoens, the Portuguese poet, as expressed on his medal 9 . Latterly perhaps he meant to save his eyes, and did not read so much as he otherwise would. He preferred conversation to books ; but when driven to the refuge of reading by being left alone, he then attached himself to that
1 Ante, i. 378 ; ii. 92 ; Life,\. 116. had neither business nor amuse-
2 Life, i. 512. ment ; for having by some ridiculous
3 The publication of the last of resolution, or mad vow, determined Johnson's Debates was in March, never to wear spectacles he could 1744; the Life of Sewage had ap- make little use of books in his later peared in the previous February. Ib. years.' Johnson's Works, viii. 218. i. 165, 511. Perhaps Stella used to urge him to
4 'I wrote forty-eight of the printed wear them, for in his verses to her octavo pages of the Life of Savage he says :
at a sitting ; but then I sat up all ' Nor think on our approaching
night. 3 Ib. v. 67. There were 180 ills,
pages in all. And talk of spectacles and pills.'
5 The Vision of Theodore the Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xi. 21. Hermit of Teneriffe found in his 8 Paradise Lost, iii. 44. For Cell. Works, ix. 162. ' The Bishop Johnson's eyesight see ante, i. 337. of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say 9 In the Gentleman's Magazine that he thought this was the best for April, 1784 (p. 257), is given an thing he ever wrote.' Life, i. 192. engraving of this medal, which shows
6 Ib. i. 192. Camoens' disfigurement by the loss of
7 'Having thus excluded conver- an eye. See also ib. p. 415. sation and desisted from study Swift
amusement
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