n a child of three years
old, he chanced to tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood,
and killed it; upon which, it is said, he dictated to his mother the
following epitaph:

'Here lies good master duck,
Whom Samuel Johnson trod on;
If it had liv'd, it had been GOOD LUCK,
For then we'd had an ODD ONE.'

There is surely internal evidence that this little composition combines
in it, what no child of three years old could produce, without an
extension of its faculties by immediate inspiration; yet Mrs. Lucy
Porter, Dr. Johnson's stepdaughter, positively maintained to me, in his
presence, that there could be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote,
for she had heard it from his mother. So difficult is it to obtain
an authentick relation of facts, and such authority may there be for
errour; for he assured me, that his father made the verses, and wished
to pass them for his child's. He added, 'my father was a foolish old
man; that is to say, foolish in talking of his children.'

Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the
scrophula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally well
formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much, that he did not see at all
with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from
that of the other. There is amongst his prayers, one inscribed 'When, my
EYE was restored to its use,' which ascertains a defect that many of his
friends knew he had, though I never perceived it. I supposed him to be
only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in no other respect
could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of
his attention and perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all
manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that is
rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the Highlands of
Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain which I observed resembled
a cone, he corrected my inaccuracy, by shewing me, that it was indeed
pointed at the top, but that one side of it was larger than the other.
And the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree, that no man was more
nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of female dress. When I
found that he saw the romantick beauties of Islam, in Derbyshire, much
better than I did, I told him that he resembled an able performer upon
a bad instrument. It has been said, that he contracted this grievous
malady from his nurs