56 Johnson two years at home. No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys Expell'd and exil'd from the blissful seats, Vex ev'ry eye, and every bosom tear; No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide. Then melt, ye fair, while crouds around you sigh, With pity soften every awful grace, And beauty smile auspicious in each face; To ease their pains exert your milder power, So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore.' [A.D. 1728. The two years which he spent at home, after his return from Stourbridge, he passed in what he thought idleness', and was scolded by his father for his want of steady application. He I Yet he said to Boswell :-'Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now' (post, July 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that 'his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of eighteen' (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on been hindered by ill-health (post, Feb. 1767). Hawkins (Life, p. 9) says that 'his father took him home, probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book.' 'It were better bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, as you did one year in our thatched summer-house.' Piozzi Letters, i. 375. It was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age (post, November, 1784). had Aetat. 19.] His wide reading. 57 had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them. He used to mention one curious instance of his casual reading, when but a boy. Having imagined that his brother had hid some apples behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop, he climbed up to search for them. There were no apples; but the large folio proved to be Petrarch, whom he had seen mentioned in some preface, as one of the restorers of learning. His curiosity having been thus excited, he sat down with avidity, and read a great part of the book. What he read during these two years he told me, was not works of mere amusement, 'not voyages and travels, but all literature, Sir, all ancient writers, all manly: though but little Greek, only some of Anacreon and Hesiod; but in this irregular manner (added he) I had looked into a great many books, which were not commonly known at the Universities, where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr. Adams, now master of Pembroke College, told me I was the best qualified for the University that he had ever known come there '.' In estimating the progress of his mind during these two years, as well as in future periods of his life, we must not regard his own hasty confession of idleness; for we see, when he explains himself, that he was acquiring various stores; and, indeed he himself concluded the account with saying, 'I would not have you think I was doing nothing then.' He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; but it may be doubted whether such a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature than if it had been confined to any single spot. The analogy 'Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he thus describes Pope's reading at about the same age. During this period of his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious; wanting health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and having excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge too eager to be nice.' Johnson's Works, viii. 239. between 58 Johnson enters Oxford. [A.D. 1728. between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. The flesh of animals who feed excursively, is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? That a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of sending his son to the expensive University of Oxford, at his own charge, seems very improbable. The subject was too delicate to question Johnson upon. But I have been assured by Dr. Taylor that the scheme never would have taken place had not a gentleman of Shropshire, one of his schoolfellows, spontaneously undertaken to support him at Oxford, in the character of his companion; though, in fact, he never received any assistance whatever from that gentleman'. He, however, went to Oxford, and was entered a Commoner of Pembroke College on the 31st of October, 17282, being then in his nineteenth year3. Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's god-father, was a member of the College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the books in 1728. 2 In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two following entries: 'Oct. 31, 1728. Recd. then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Comr. of Pem. Coll. ye sum of seven Pounds for his Caution, which is to remain in ye Hands of ye Bursars till ye said Mr. Johnson shall depart ye said College leaving ye same fully discharg'd. Recd. by me, John Ratcliff, Bursar.' 'March 26, 1740. At a convention of the Master and Fellows to settle the accounts of the Caution it appear'd that the Persons Accounts underwritten stood thus at their leaving the College: Caution not Repay'd Mr. Carlyle is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor. He was a commoner as the above entry shows. Though he entered on Oct. 31, he did not matriculate till Dec. 16. It was on Palm Sunday of this same year that Rousseau left Geneva, and so entered upon his eventful career. Goldsmith was born eleven days after Johnson entered (Nov. 10, 1728). Reynolds was five years old. Burke was born before Johnson left Oxford. 3 He was in his twentieth year. He was born on Sept. 18, 1709, and was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his Life of Ascham he says, 'Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, in the eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common now to enter the universities than to take degrees.' Johnson's Works, vi. 505. It was just after Johnson's entrance that the two Wesleys began to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford. The Aetat. 19.] His first tutor. 59 The Reverend Dr. Adams, who afterwards presided over Pembroke College with universal esteem, told me he was present, and gave me some account of what passed on the night of Johnson's arrival at Oxford'. On that evening, his father, who had anxiously accompanied him, found means to have him introduced to Mr. Jorden, who was to be his tutor. His being put under any tutor reminds us of what Wood says of Robert Burton, authour of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' when elected student of Christ Church: for form's sake, though he wanted not a tutor, he was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxon'.' His father seemed very full of the merits of his son, and told the company he was a good scholar, and a poet, and wrote Latin verses. His figure and manner appeared strange to them; but he behaved modestly, and sat silent, till upon something which occurred in the course of conversation, he suddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius; and thus he gave the first impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged himself. His tutor, Mr. Jorden, fellow of Pembroke, was not, it seems, a man of such abilities as we should conceive requisite for the instructor of Samuel Johnson, who gave me the following account of him. He was a very worthy man, but a heavy man, and I did not profit much by his instructions. Indeed, I did not attend him much3. The first day after I came to college I waited upon him, and then staid away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I answered I had been sliding in Christ-Church meadow. And this I said with as Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627. rang.' He was fined half-a-crown. BOSWELL. Tyerman's Whitefield, i. 22. In my 17, N. S. 60 The fifth of November. [A.D. 1728. much nonchalance as I am now1 talking to you. I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor2. BOSWELL: That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind.' JOHNSON: 'No, Sir; stark insensibility3.' The fifth of November was at that time kept with great solemnity at Pembroke College, and exercises upon the subject of the day were required. Johnson neglected to perform his, which is much to be regretted; for his vivacity of imagination, and force of language, would probably have produced something sublime upon the gunpowder plot. To apologise for his neglect, he gave in a short copy of verses, entitled Somnium, containing a common thought; 'that the Muse had come to him in his sleep, and whispered, that it did not become him to write on such subjects as politicks; he should confine himself to humbler themes but the versification was truly Virgilian'. bear. The first mention of frost that I find in the newspapers of that winter is in the Weekly Journal for Nov. 30, O. S.; where it is stated that 'the passage by land and water [i. e. the Thames] is now become very dangerous by the snow, frost, and ice.' The record of meteorological observations began a few years later. * Oxford, 20th March, 1776. BosWELL. 2 Mr. Croker discovers a great difference between this account and that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (post, under July 16, 1754). There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility' belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He had been impertinent before dinner, and when he was sent for after dinner 'he expected a sharp rebuke.' 3 It ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his literary as well as moral exercises, to overcharge his defects. Dr. Adams informed me, that he attended his tutor's lectures, and also the lectures in the College Hall, very regularly. BOSWELL. 4 Early in every November was kept a great gaudy [feast] in the college, when the Master dined in publick, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to comply with) went round the fire in the hall.' Philipps's Diary, Notes and Queries, 2nd S., x. 443. We can picture to ourselves among the juniors in November 1728, Samuel Johnson, going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day after day the Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. 'I believe I can repeat it,' Johnson said at St. Andrew's, 'which he did.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19, 1773. 5 Seven years before Johnson's time, on Nov. 5, Mr. Peyne, Bachelor of Arts, made an oration in the hall suitable to the day.' Philipps's Diary. Boswell forgot Johnson's criticism on Milton's exercises on this day. 'Some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been spared.' Johnson's Works, vii. 119. 'It has not been preserved. There He |