The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson | Page 4

on some occasions.
The Messiah, played upon the Canterbury organ, is more sublime than
when played upon an inferior instrument: but very slight musick will
seem grand, when conveyed to the ear through that majestick medium.
WHILE THEREFORE DOCTOR JOHNSON'S SAYINGS ARE
READ, LET HIS MANNER BE TAKEN ALONG WITH THEM. Let
it however be observed, that the sayings themselves are generally great;
that, though he might be an ordinary composer at times, he was for the
most part a Handel. His person was large, robust, I may say
approaching to the gigantick, and grown unwieldy from corpulency.
His countenance was naturally of the craft of an ancient statue, but
somewhat disfigured by the scars of that evil, which, it was formerly
imagined, the royal touch could cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth
year, and was become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been
somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the
deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and
accurate. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of
motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed
by cramps, or convulsive contractions, [Footnote: Such they appeared
to me: but since the first edition, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to
me, 'that Dr Johnson's extraordinary gestures were only habits, in which
he indulged himself at certain times. When in company, where he was
not free, or when engaged earnestly in conversation, he never gave way
to such habits, which proves that they were not involuntary', I still

however think, that these gestures were involuntary; for surely had not
that been the case, he would have restrained them in the publick streets.]
of the nature of that distemper called St Vitus's dance. He wore a full
suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted-hair buttons of the same
colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings,
and silver buckles. Upon this tour, when journeying, he wore boots,
and a very wide brown cloth great coat, with pockets which might have
almost held the two volumes of his folio dictionary; and he carried in
his hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for
mentioning such minute particulars. Every thing relative to so great a
man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam Smith, in his rhetorical
lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know that Milton wore
latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles. When I mention the oak stick,
it is but letting Hercules have his club; and, by-and-by, my readers will
find this stick will bud, and produce a good joke.
This imperfect sketch of 'the combination and the form' of that
Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and
after whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased Almighty
God to call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the fancy of
my readers the capital object of the following journal, in the course of
which I trust they will attain to a considerable degree of acquaintance
with him.
His prejudice against Scotland was announced almost as soon as he
began to appear in the world of letters. In his London, a poem, are the
following nervous lines:
For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land Or change the rocks of
Scotland for the Strand There none are swept by sudden fate away; But
all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.
The truth is, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself to
look upon all nations but his own as barbarians: not only Hibernia, and
Scotland, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the same poem. If
he was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they
were more in his way; because he thought their success in England
rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he

could not but seenin them that nationality which I believe no
liberal-minded Scotsman will deny. He was indeed, if I may be allowed
the phrase, at bottom much of a John Bull; much of a blunt 'true born
Englishman'. There was a stratum of common clay under the rock of
marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating; and he had a great
deal of that quality called humour, which gives an oiliness and a gloss
to every other quality.
I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my travels
through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never
felt myself from home; and I sincerely love 'every kindred and tongue
and people and nation'. I subscribe to what my late truly learned and
philosophical friend Mr Crosbie said, that the English are better
animals than