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morbid melancholy, and other bodily infirmities, rendered impracticable.
We see him, for every little defect, imposing on himself voluntary
penance, going through the day with only one cup of tea without milk,
and to the last, amidst paroxysms and remissions of illness, forming
plans of study and resolutions to amend his life[aa]. Many of his
scruples may be called weaknesses; but they are the weaknesses of a
good, a pious, and most excellent man.

His person, it is well known, was large and unwieldy. His nerves were
affected by that disorder, for which, at two years of age, he was
presented to the royal touch. His head shook, and involuntary motions
made it uncertain that his legs and arms would, even at a tea-table,
remain in their proper place. A person of lord Chesterfield's delicacy
might, in his company, be in a fever. He would, sometimes, of his own
accord, do things inconsistent with the established modes of behaviour.
Sitting at table with the celebrated Mrs. Cholmondeley, who exerted
herself to circulate the subscription for Shakespeare, he took hold of
her hand, in the middle of dinner, and held it close to his eye,
wondering at the delicacy and whiteness, till, with a smile, she asked,
"Will he give it to me again, when he has done with it?" The exteriors
of politeness did not belong to Johnson. Even that civility, which
proceeds, or ought to proceed, from the mind, was sometimes violated.
His morbid melancholy had an effect on his temper; his passions were
irritable; and the pride of science, as well as of a fierce independent
spirit, inflamed him, on some occasions, above all bounds of moderation.
Though not in the shade of academic bowers, he led a scholastic life;
and the habit of pronouncing decisions to his friends and visitors, gave
him a dictatorial manner, which was much enforced by a voice naturally
loud, and often overstretched. Metaphysical discussion, moral theory,
systems of religion, and anecdotes of literature, were his favourite
topics. General history had little of his regard. Biography was his
delight. The proper study of mankind is man. Sooner than hear of the
Punic war, he would be rude to the person that introduced the subject.

Johnson was born a logician; one of those, to whom only books of logic
are said to be of use. In consequence of his skill in that art, he loved
argumentation. No man thought more profoundly, nor with such acute
discernment. A fallacy could not stand before hi