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His knowledge of books.

[A.D. 1729. delight, and it was long before he liked his Epistles and Satires. He told me what he read solidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer1 and Euripides, and now and then a little Epigram; that the study of which he was the most fond was Metaphysicks, but he had not read much, even in that way. I always thought that he did himself injustice in his account of what he had read, and that he must have been speaking with reference to the vast portion of study which is possible, and to which a few scholars in the whole history of literature have attained; for when I once asked him whether a person, whose name I have now forgotten, studied hard, he answered 'No, Sir; I do not believe he studied hard. I never knew a man who studied hard. I conclude, indeed, from the effects, that some men have studied hard, as Bentley and Clarke.' Trying him by that criterion upon which he formed his judgement of others, we may be absolutely certain, both from his writings and his conversation, that his reading was very extensive. Dr. Adam Smith, than whom few were better judges on this subject, once observed to me that Johnson knew more books than any man alive.' He had a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without submitting to the labour of perusing it from beginning to end'.

He told Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey completely. Windham's Diary, p. 17. At college, he said, he had been 'very idle and neglectful of his studies.' Ib.

2 It may be questioned whether, except his Bible, he ever read a book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his presence, he was sure to ask, “Did you read it through?" If the answer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 12. It would be easy to show that Johnson read many books right through, though, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he asked, 'was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?' Piozzi's Anec. p. 281. Nevertheless in Murphy's statement there is some truth. See what has been just stated by Boswell, that he hardly ever read any poem to an end,' and post, April 19, 1773, and June 15, 1784. To him might be applied his own description of Barretier:-' He had a quickness of apprehension and

He

Aetat. 20.] His rapid reading and composition.

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He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at all times, an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote. A certain apprehension, arising from novelty, made him write his first exercise at College twice over'; but he never took that trouble with any other composition; and we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat, with rapid exertion".

Yet he appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his

firmness of memory which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose.' Johnson's Works, vi. 390.

1 See post, June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham (Diary, p. 17) records the following anecdote of Johnson's first declamation at college; having neglected to write it till the morning of his being (sic) to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he was walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could extempore.' Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same anecdote, says that 'having given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how he could.... "A prodigious risk, however," said some one. "Not at all," exclaims Johnson, no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 30.

He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were printed, twice over. Dr. Burney's wonder at seeing several pages of his Lives of the Poets, in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew this observation from him. MALONE. He wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting (post, Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the Vanity of Human Wishes in a day (post, under Feb. 15, 1766). The Ramblers were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed' (post, beginning of 1750). In the second edition, however, he made corrections. He composed Rasselas in the evenings of one week' (post, under January 1759). The False Alarm was written between eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday night.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 41. The Patriot,' he says, 'was called for on Friday, was written on Saturday' (post, Nov. 26, 1774).

attention

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Johnson's rooms in College.

[A.D. 1729. attention steadily upon something without, and prevented his mind from preying upon itself'. Thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books of the Æneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of some parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth Satire of Juvenal; and a table, shewing at the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to be read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a week, month, and year'.

No man had a more ardent love of literature, or a higher respect for it than Johnson. His apartment in Pembroke College was that upon the second floor, over the gateway. The enthusiasts of learning will ever contemplate it with veneration. One day, while he was sitting in it quite alone, Dr. Panting, then master of the College, whom he called 'a • fine Jacobite fellow,' overheard' him uttering this soliloquy in his strong, emphatick voice: 'Well, I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning. I'll go and visit

1 'When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 77. Ethics, or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in;' ib. p. 80. See post, Sept. 24, 1777.

2

'Sept. 18, 1764, I resolve to study the Scriptures; I hope in the original languages. 640 verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the Scriptures in a year.' Pr. and Med. p. 58. 1770, 1st Sunday after Easter. The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to read 600 verses in the Old Testament, and 200 in the New, every week; ib. p. 100.

3

August 1, 1715. This being the day on which the late Queen Anne died, and on which George, Duke and Elector of Brunswick, usurped the English throne, there was very little rejoicing in Oxford. . . . There was a sermon at St. Marie's by Dr. Panting, Master of Pembroke; ... He is an honest gent. His sermon took no notice, at most very little, of the Duke of Brunswick.' Hearne's Remains, ii. 6.

The outside wall of the gateway-tower forms an angle with the wall of the Master's house, so that any one sitting by the open window and speaking in a strong emphatic voice might have easily been overheard.

the