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.
[170] Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson’s godfather, was a member of the College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the books in 1728.
[171] In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two following entries:—
‘Oct. 31, 1728. Recd. then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Commr. of Pem. Coll. ye summ 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. Johnson £7 0 0
Battells not discharg’d
Mr. Johnson £7 0 0
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.
[172] 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.
[173] Builders were at work in the college during all his residence. ‘July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.’ Hearne’s Remains, iii. 9.
[174] Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627. BOSWELL.
[175] Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend his lectures…. Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to Jorden:—“Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny.” Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 9. A passage in Whitefield’s Diary shows that the sconce was often greater. He once neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Saturday had to be given to the tutor in the Hall ‘when the bell rang.’ He was fined half-a-crown. Tyerman’s Whitefield, i. 22. In my time (1855-8) at Pembroke College every Saturday when the bell rang we gave in our piece of Latin prose—themes were things of the past.
[176] This was on Nov. 6, O.S., or Nov. 17, N.S.—a very early time for ice to 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.
[177] Oxford, 20th March, 1776. BOSWELL.
[178] 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.’
[179] 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 tutors lectures, and also the lectures in the College Hall, very regularly. BOSWELL.
[180] 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.
[181] 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.
[182] 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.
[183] It has not been preserved. There are in the college library four of his compositions, two of verse and two of prose. One of the copies of verse I give post, under July 16, 1754. Both have been often printed. As his prose compositions have never been published I will give one:—
‘Mea nec Falernae
Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles.’
‘Quaedam minus attente spectata absurda videntur, quae tamen penitus perspecta rationi sunt consentanea. Non enim semper facta per se, verum ratio occasioque faciendi sunt cogitanda. Deteriora ei offerre cui meliorum ingens copia est, cui non ridiculum videtur? Quis sanus hirtam agrestemque vestem Lucullo obtulisset, cujus omnia fere Serum opificia, omnia Parmae vellera, omnes Tyri colores latuerunt? Hoc tamen fecisse Horatium non puduit, quo nullus urbanior, nullus procerum convictui magis assuetus. Maecenatem scilicet nôrat non quaesiturum an meliora vina domi posset bibere, verum an inter domesticos quenquam propensiori in se animo posset invenire. Amorem, non lucrum, optavit patronus ille munifentissimus (sic). Pocula licet vino minus puro implerentur, satis habuit, si hospitis vultus laetitia perfusus sinceram puramque amicitiam testaretur. Ut ubi poetam carmine celebramus, non fastidit, quod ipse melius posset scribere, verum poema licet non magni facit (sic), amorem scriptoris libenter amplectitur, sic amici munuscula animum gratum testantia licet parvi sint, non nisi a superbo et moroso contemnentur. Deos thuris fumis indigere nemo certè unquam credidit, quos tamen iis gratos putarunt, quia homines se non beneficiorum immemores his testimoniis ostenderunt.’
JOHNSON.
[184] ‘The accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained Addison the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen’s College, by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy’ [a scholar]. Johnson’s Works, vii. 420. Johnson’s verses gained him nothing but ‘estimation.’
[185] He is reported to have said:—‘The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.’ Hawkins, p. 13.
[186] ‘A Miscellany of Poems by several hands. Published by J. Husbands, A.M., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxon., Oxford. Printed by Leon. Lichfield, near the East-Gate, In the year MDCCXXXI.’ Among the subscribers I notice the name of Richard Savage, Esq., for twenty copies. It is very doubtful whether he paid for one. Pope did not subscribe. Johnson’s poem is thus mentioned in the preface:—‘The translation of Mr. Pope’s Messiah was deliver’d to his Tutor as a College Exercise by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College in Oxford, and ‘tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original.’
[187] See post, under July 16, 1754.
[188] See Boswell’s Hebrides,