othing, Sir, be they addressed to what they may.'

The suddenness of it! Bang!--and the rabbit that had popped from its
burrow was no more.

I know not which is the more startling--the de'but of the unfortunate
clergyman, or the instantaneousness of his end. Why hadn't Boswell told
us there was a clergyman present? Well, we may be sure that so careful
and acute an artist had some good reason. And I suppose the clergyman
was left to take us unawares because just so did he take the company.
Had we been told he was there, we might have expected that sooner or
later he would join in the conversation. He would have had a place in
our minds. We may assume that in the minds of the company around
Johnson he had no place. He sat forgotten, overlooked; so that his
self-assertion startled every one just as on Boswell's page it startles
us. In Johnson's massive and magnetic presence only some very remarkable
man, such as Mr. Burke, was sharply distinguishable from the rest.
Others might, if they had something in them, stand out slightly. This
unfortunate clergyman may have had something in him, but I judge that he
lacked the gift of seeming as if he had. That deficiency, however,
does not account for the horrid fate that befell him. One of Johnson's
strongest and most inveterate feelings was his veneration for the
Cloth. To any one in Holy Orders he habitually listened with a grave and
charming deference. To-day moreover, he was in excellent good humour. He
was at the Thrales', where he so loved to be; the day was fine; a fine
dinner was in close prospect; and he had had what he always declared to
be the sum of human felicity--a ride in a coach. Nor was there in the
question put by the clergyman anything likely to enrage him. Dodd was
one whom Johnson had befriended in adversity; and it had always been
agreed that Dodd in his pulpit was very emotional. What drew the
blasting flash must have been not the question itself, but the manner in
which it was asked. And I think we can guess what that manner was.

Say the words aloud: 'Were not Dodd's sermons addressed to the
passions?' They are words which, if you have any dramatic and histrionic
sense, cannot be said except in a high, thin voice.

You may, from sheer perversity, utter them in a rich and sonorous
baritone or bass. But if you do so, they sound utterly unnatural. To
make them carry the conviction of human utterance, you have no choice:
you must pipe them.

Remember, now,