80 JOHNSON. 



the small number of his familiar and admiring friends 

 often desire to repeat the experiment. His talk was 

 most commonly for victory, rather than* directed to the 

 clearing up of rational doubt, or the ascertaining of 

 important truth : nor unless upon the serious subject of 

 religion, and upon some of the political points involved 

 in the Whig and Tory controversy, did he ever seem to 

 care much on which side he argued, dogmatised, laughed 

 boisterously, or sneered rudely. His manners were, in 

 some trifling particulars, formal and courtly ; that is to 

 say, he greatly regarded rank and station, bowed even 

 more profoundly to dignitaries of the church than 

 to temporal peers, and shewed overdone courtesy to 

 women, unless when his temper was ruffled by opposi- 

 tion; but in all that constitutes a well-bred person- 

 abnegation of self, equable manner, equal good humour 

 on all subjects of talk, undistinguishing courtesy to all 

 persons it would not be easy to name any person more 

 entirely defective among those who have ever lived in 

 good company. His external and accidental defects 

 added much to the outward roughness, but were wholly 

 independent of the real want of good breeding by which 

 he was so much distinguished. His awkward motions 

 his convulsive starts his habit of muttering to himself 

 his purblindness his panting articulation his uncouth 

 figure were all calculated to impress the beholder with 

 the sense of his being an uncivilized person, but would all 

 have been easily forgotten had they only covered the essen- 

 tials of politeness, and not been the crust of manners 

 essentially unrefined. Of those personal peculiarities 

 Miss Burney has preserved a very lively representation : 

 " He is, indeed, very ill-favoured ! Yet he has natur- 



