He was a big, strong boy, but he
suffered from a dreadful disease, known then as the King's Evil.
It left scars upon his good-looking face, and nearly robbed him
of his eyesight. In those days people still believed that this
dreadful disease would be cured if the person suffering from it
was touched by a royal hand. So when he was two, little Samuel
was taken to London by his father and mother, and there he was
"touched" by Queen Anne. Samuel had a wonderful memory, and
although he had been so young at the time, all his life after he
kept a kind of awed remembrance of a stately lady who wore a long
black hood and sparkling diamonds. The touch of the Queen's soft
white hand did the poor little sick child no good, and it is
quaint to remember that the great learned doctor thought it might
be because he had been touched by the wrong royal hand. He might
have been cured perhaps had he been taken to Rome and touched by
the hand of a Stuart. For Johnson was a Tory, and all his life
he remained at heart a Jacobite.
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