Whether Samuel Johnson, of Lichfield, ever read Montaigne or not is a question; but this we know, that when he was twenty-six he married the Widow Porter, aged forty-nine.

Assuming that Johnson had read Montaigne and was mindful of his advice, there were other excellent reasons why he did not link his fortunes with those of a young and pretty woman.

Johnson in his youth, as well as throughout life, was a Grind of the pure type.  The Grind is a fixture, a few being found at every University, even unto this day.  The present writer, once in a book of fiction, founded on fact, took occasion to refer to the genus Grind, with Samuel Johnson in mind, as follows:  He is poor in purse, but great in frontal development.

He goes to school because he wishes to (no one ever “sent” a Grind to college).  He has a sallow skin, a watery eye, a shambling gait, but he has the facts.  His clothes are outgrown, his coat shiny, his linen a dull ecru, his hands clammy.  He reads a book as he walks, and when he bumps into you, he always exculpates himself in Attic Greek.

This absent-mindedness and habit of reading on the street affords the Sport (another college type) great opportunity for the playing of pranks.  It is very funny to walk along in front of a Grind who is reading as he walks, and then suddenly stop and stoop, and let the Grind fall over you; for the innocent Grind, thinking he has been at fault, is ever profuse in apologies.

Many years ago there was a Grind.  A party of Sports saw him approaching, deeply immersed in his book.  “Look you,” quoth the chief of the Sports—­“look you and observe him fall over me.”

And they looked.

Onward blindly trudged the Grind, reading as he came.  The Sport stepped ahead of him, stooped, and ——­ one big foot of the Grind shot out and kicked him into the gutter.  Then the Grind continued his walk and his reading without saying a word.

This incident is here recorded for the betterment of the Young, to show them that things are not always what they seem.

Samuel Johnson, I have said, was a Grind of the pure type.  He was so nearsighted that he fell over chairs in drawing-rooms, and so awkward that his long arms occasionally brushed the bric-a-brac from mantels.  No lady’s train was safe if he was in the room.  At gatherings of young people, if Johnson appeared, his presence was at once the signal for mirth, of which he was, of course, the unconscious object.

Johnson’s face was scarred by the King’s Evil, which even the touch of Queen Anne had failed to cure.  While a youth he talked aloud to himself—­a privilege that should be granted only to those advanced in years.  He would grunt out prayers and expletives at uncertain times, keep up a clucking sound with his tongue, sway his big body from side to side, and drum a tattoo upon his knee.  Now and again would come a suppressed whistle, and then a low humming sound, backed up by a vacant non-compos-mentis smile.