ing features of this extraordinary man, I shall endeavour to
acquit myself of that part of my biographical undertaking[1285], however
difficult it may be to do that which many of my readers will do better
for themselves.

His figure was large and well formed, and his countenance of the cast of
an ancient statue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and somewhat
uncouth, by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that distemper which it
was once imagined the royal touch could cure, and by a slovenly mode of
dress. He had the use only of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and
even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as
far as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate[1286]. So
morbid was his temperament, that he never knew the natural joy of a free
and vigorous use of his limbs: when he walked, it was like the
struggling gait of one in fetters; when he rode, he had no command or
direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a balloon[1287]. That
with his constitution and habits of life he should have lived
seventy-five years, is a proof that an inherent _vivida vis_[1288] is a
powerful preservative of the human frame.

Man is, in general, made up of contradictory qualities; and these will
ever shew themselves in strange succession, where a consistency in
appearance at least, if not in reality, has not been attained by long
habits of philosophical discipline. In proportion to the native vigour
of the mind, the contradictory qualities will be the more prominent, and
more difficult to be adjusted; and, therefore, we are not to wonder,
that Johnson exhibited an eminent example of this remark which I have
made upon human nature. At different times, he seemed a different man,
in some respects; not, however, in any great or essential article, upon
which he had fully employed his mind, and settled certain principles of
duty, but only in his manners, and in the display of argument and fancy
in his talk. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though
his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the
mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with
jealousy[1289]. He was a sincere and zealous Christian, of high
Church-of-England and monarchical principles, which he would not tamely
suffer to be questioned; and had, perhaps, at an early period, narrowed
his mind somewhat too much, both as to religion and politicks. His being
impressed with the danger o