In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious
indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is
exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation, and totally
concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he
became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's
death. Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her
mother, his appearance was very forbidding: he was then lean and lank,
so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the
eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply visible. He also wore
his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he
often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which
tended to excite at once surprize and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so
much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external
disadvantages, and said to her daughter, 'this is the most sensible man
that I ever saw in my life.'

Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson, and her person and
manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means
pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of understanding
and talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary
passion; and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand,
he went to Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the marriage, which
he could not but be conscious was a very imprudent scheme, both on
account of their disparity of years, and her want of fortune. But Mrs.
Johnson knew too well the ardour of her son's temper, and was too tender
a parent to oppose his inclinations.

I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at
Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for
which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in