Confused but Solemn

I have been meaning to clear this up! While Peter Ackroyd's statement that "he remained a staunch royalist for the rest of his life" seems to suggest that Samuel Johnson believed Queen Anne's touch when he was three years old cured him of scrofula, Boswell says otherwise: "The touch, however, was without any effect." There's also this detail, which I like: "Being asked if he could remember Queen Anne, 'He had (he said) a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood.'"