Johnson was very deaf. Even the people whom he knew well,
the people to whose voices he was accustomed, had to address him very
loudly. It is probable that this unregarded, young, shy clergyman, when
at length he suddenly mustered courage to 'cut in,' let his high, thin
voice soar too high, insomuch that it was a kind of scream. On no other
hypothesis can we account for the ferocity with which Johnson turned and
rended him. Johnson didn't, we may be sure, mean to be cruel. The old
lion, startled, just struck out blindly. But the force of paw and claws
was not the less lethal. We have endless testimony to the strength
of Johnson's voice; and the very cadence of those words, 'They were
nothing, Sir, be they addressed to what they may,' convinces me that the
old lion's jaws never gave forth a louder roar. Boswell does not record
that there was any further conversation before the announcement of
dinner. Perhaps the whole company had been temporarily deafened. But
I am not bothering about them. My heart goes out to the poor dear
clergyman exclusively.

I said a moment ago that he was young and shy; and I admit that I
slipped those epithets in without having justified them to you by due
process of induction. Your quick mind will have already supplied what I
omitted. A man with a high, thin voice, and without power to impress any
one with a sense of his importance, a man so null in effect that even
the retentive mind of Boswell did not retain his very name, would
assuredly not be a self-confident man. Even if he were not naturally
shy, social courage would soon have been sapped in him, and would in
time have been destroyed, by experience. That he had not yet given
himself up as a bad job, that he still had faint wild hopes, is proved
by the fact that he did snatch the opportunity for asking that question.
He must, accordingly, have been young. Was he the curate of the
neighbouring church? I think so. It would account for his having been
invited. I see him as he sits there listening to the great Doctor's
pronouncement on Atterbury and those others. He sits on the edge of a
chair in the background. He has colourless eyes, fixed earnestly, and a
face almost as pale as the clerical bands beneath his somewhat receding
chin. His forehead is high and narrow, his hair mouse-coloured. His
hands are clasped tight before him, the knuckles standing out sharply.
This constriction does not mean that he is steeling himself to speak.
He has