Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

I'll mind my business. For an Athenian blockhead is the worst of all blockheads."

"1

Dr. Adams told me that Johnson, while he was at Pembroke College, "was caressed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicsome fellow, and passed there the happiest part of his life." But this is a striking proof of the fallacy of appearances, and how little any of us know of the real internal state even of those whom we see most frequently; for the truth is, that he was then depressed by poverty, and irritated by disease. When I mentioned to him this account as given me by Dr. Adams, he said, “Ah, Sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority."

The Bishop of Dromore observes in a letter to me, "The pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often mentioned. But I have heard him say, what ought to be recorded to the honour of the present venerable master of that college, the Reverend William Adams, D.D., who was then very young, and one of the junior fellows, that the mild but judicious expostulations of this worthy man, whose virtue awed him, and whose learning he revered, made him really ashamed of himself, though I fear (said he) I was too proud to own it.' "I have heard from some of his contemporaries that he was generally seen lounging at the college gate, with a circle of young students round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies, if not spiriting them up to rebellion against the college discipline, which in his maturer years he so much extolled."

' I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams, and Dr. Johnson confirmed it. Bramston, in his Man of Taste, has the same thought :

"Sure of all blockheads scholars are the worst."

2 Dr. Adams was about two years older than Johnson, having been born in 1707. He became a Fellow of Pembroke in 1723, D.D. in 1756, and Master of the College in 1775.-Croker.

3 There are preserved, in Pembroke College, some of these themes, or exercises, both in prose and verse: the following, though the two first

He very early began to attempt keeping notes or memorandums, by way of a diary of his life. I find, in a parcel of loose leaves, the following spirited resolution to contend against his natural indolence: "Oct. 1729. Desidia valedixi; syrenis istius cantibus surdam posthac aurem obversurus. I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved henceforth not to listen to her syren strains." I have also in my possession a few leaves of another Libellus, or little book, entitled ANNALES, in which some of the early particulars of his history are registered in Latin.

I do not find that he formed any close intimacies with his fellow-collegians. But Dr. Adams told me, that he contracted a love and regard for Pembroke College, which he retained to the last. A short time before his death he sent to that college a present of all his works,' to be deposited in their library;

lines are awkward, has more point and pleasantry than his epigrams usually have. It may be surmised that the college beer was at this time indifferent:

"Mea nec Falernæ

Temperant vites, neque Formiani

Pocula colles."-Hor. Od. 1, 20, 10.

"Quid mirum Maro quod dignè canit arma virumque,

Quid quod putidulùm nostra Camæna sonat?
Limosum nobis Promus dat callidus haustum ;

Virgilio vires uva Falerna dedit.

Carmina vis nostri scribant meliora Poetæ ?

Ingenium jubeas purior haustus alat!"

Another is in a graver and better style :

66

Adjecere bona paulo plus artis Athena."
Hor. Epist. ii. 2, 43.

"Quas Natura dedit dotes, Academia promi ;
Dat menti propriis Musa nitere bonis.
Materiam statuæ sic præbet marmora tellus,

Saxea Phidiacâ spirat imago manu."

Johnson repeated this idea in the Latin verses on the termination of his Dictionary, entitled г201 ZEAYTON, but not, as I think, so elegantly as in the epigram.-Croker.

1

1 Certainly, not all; and those which we have are not all marked as presented by him.-Hall.

and he had thoughts of leaving to it his house at Lichfield; but his friends who were about him very properly dissuaded him from it, and he bequeathed it to some poor relations. He took a pleasure in boasting of the many eminent men who had been educated at Pembroke. In this list are found the names of Mr. Hawkins the Poetry Professor, Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackstone, and others,' not forgetting the celebrated popular preacher, Mr. George Whitefield, of whom, though Dr. Johnson did not think very highly, it must be acknowledged that his eloquence was powerful, his views pious and charitable, his assiduity almost incredible; and that, since his death, the integrity of his character has been fully vindicated. Being himself a poet, Johnson was peculiarly happy in mentioning how many of the sons of Pembroke were poets; adding, with a smile of sportive triumph, "Sir, we are a nest of singingbirds."

He was not, however, blind to what he thought the defects of his own college: and I have, from the information of Dr. Taylor, a very strong instance of that rigid honesty which he ever inflexibly preserved. Taylor had obtained his father's consent to be entered of Pembroke, that he might be with his schoolfellow Johnson, with whom, though some years older than himself, he was very intimate. This would have been a great comfort to Johnson. But he fairly told Taylor that he could not, in conscience, suffer him to enter where he knew he could not have an able tutor. He then made enquiry all round the university, and having found that Mr. Bateman, of Christchurch, was the tutor of highest reputation, Taylor was entered of that college. Mr. Bateman's lectures were so excellent, that Johnson used to come and get them at second-hand from Taylor, till his poverty being so extreme, that his shoes were worn out, and his feet appeared through them, he saw that this humiliating circumstance was perceived by the Christchurch men, and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money, and somebody having set a pair of new shoes

1 See Nash's History of Worcestershire, vol. i., p. 529.

at his door, he threw them away with indignation. How must we feel when we read such an anecdote of Samuel Johnson!

His spirited refusal of an eleemosynary supply of shoes arose, no doubt, from a proper pride. But, considering his ascetic disposition at times, as acknowledged by himself in his "Meditations," and the exaggeration with which some have treated the peculiarities of his character, I should not wonder to hear it ascribed to a principle of superstitious mortification; as we are told by Tursellinus, in his "Life of St. Ignatius Loyola," that this intrepid founder of the order of Jesuits, when he arrived at Goa, after having made a severe pilgrimage through the eastern deserts, persisted in wearing his miserable shattered shoes, and when new ones were offered him, rejected them as an unsuitable indulgence.

The res angusta domi prevented him from having the advantage of a complete academical education. The friend to whom he had trusted for support had deceived him. His debts in college, though not great, were increasing; and his scanty remittances from Lichfield, which had all along been made with great difficulty, could be supplied no longer, his father having fallen into a state of insolvency. Compelled, therefore, by irresistible necessity, he left the college in autumn 1731, without a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years.1

Dr. Adams, the worthy and respectable master of Pembroke College, has generally had the reputation of being Johnson's tutor. The fact, however, is, that in 1731, Mr. Jorden quitted the college, and his pupils were transferred to Dr. Adams; so that had Johnson returned, Dr. Adams would have been his tutor. It is to be wished, that this connection had taken place. His equal temper, mild disposition, and politeness of manners, might have insensibly softened the harshness of Johnson, and infused into him those more delicate charities, those petites morales, in which, it must be confessed, our great moralist was more deficient than his best friends could fully justify. Dr.

'See Appendix to this volume on Johnson's residence at Oxford.— Editor.

« AnteriorContinua »