trated. (1) I have now the full effect of your care and benevolence; and am far from thinking it a slight honour or a small advantage; since it will put the enjoyment of your conversation more frequently in the power of, dear Sir, your most obliged and affectionate, SAM. JOHNSON. "P. S. I have enclosed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, which you will read ; and, if you like it, seal and give him." As the public will doubtless be pleased to see the whole progress of this well-earned academical honour, I shall insert the Chancellor of Oxford's letter to the University, the diploma, and Johnson's letter of thanks to the Vice-Chancellor. LETTER 35. TO THE REV. DR. HUDDESFORD, [President of Trinity College,] Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford; to be communicated to the Heads of Houses, and proposed in Convocation. "Grosvenor Street, Feb. 4. 1755. "MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND GENTLEMEN ; "Mr. Samuel Johnson, who was formerly of Pembroke College, having very eminently distinguished with him the diploma from Oxford. - WARTON. Dr. William King was born in 1685. In 1722, he was a candidate for the representation of the university in parliament, on the Tory interest; but was defeated. He was a wit and a scholar, and, in particular, celebrated for his latinity; highly obnoxious to the Hanoverian party, and the idol of the Jacobites. It appears from his Anecdotes of his Own Times, published in 1819, that he was one of those intrusted with the knowledge of the Pretender's being in London in the latter end of the reign of George the Second, where Dr. King was introduced to him.. He died in 1763.- C. (1) I suppose Johnson means, that my kind intention of being the first to give him the good news of the degree being granted was frustrated, because Dr. King brought it before my intelligence arrived. - WARTON.[Dr. King was secretary to Lord Arran, as Chancellor of Oxford.1 himself by the publication of a series of essays, excellently calculated to form the manners of the people, and in which the cause of religion and morality is every where maintained by the strongest powers of argument and language; and who shortly intends to publish a Dictionary of the English tongue, formed on a new plan, and executed with the greatest labour and judgment; I persuade myself that I shall act agreeable to the sentiments of the whole university, in desiring that it may be proposed in convocation to confer on him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma, to which I readily give my consent; and am, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, and Gentlemen, your affectionate friend and servant, ARRAN." Term. Scti, Hilarii. "DIPLOMA MAGISTRI JOHNSON. 1755. "CANCELLARIUS, Magistri, et Scholares Universitatis Oxoniensis omnibus ad quos hoc presens scriptum pervenerit, salutem in Domino sempiternam. "Cùm eum in finem gradus academici à majoribus nostris instituti fuerint, ut viri ingenio et doctrinâ præstantes titulis quoque præter cæteros insignirentur; cùmque vir doctissimus Samuel Johnson è Collegio Pembrochiensi, scriptis suis popularium mores informantibus dudum literato orbi innotuerit; quin et linguæ patriæ tum ornandæ tum stabiliendæ (Lexicon scilicet Anglicanum summo studio, summo à se judicio congestum propediem editurus) etiam nunc utilissimam impendat operam; Nos igitur Cancellarius, Magistri, et Scholares antedicti, nè virum de literis humanioribus optimè meritum diutius inhonoratum prætereamus, in solenni Convocatione Doctorum, Magistrorum, Regentium, et non Regentium, decimo die Mensis Februarii Anno Domini Millesimo Septingentisimo Quinquagesimo quinto habitâ, præfatum virum Samuelem Johnson (conspirantibus omnium suffragiis) Magistrum in Artibus renunciavimus et constituimus; eumque, virtute præsentis diplomatis, singulis juribus, privilegiis, et honoribus ad istum gradum quàquà pertinentibus frui et gaudere jussimus. "In cujus rei testimonium sigillum Universitatis Oxoniensis præsentibus apponi fecimus. "Datum in Domo nostræ Convocationis die 20° Mensis Feb. Anno Dom. prædicto. "Diploma supra scriptum per Registrarium lectum erat, et ex decreto venerabilis Domûs communi Universitatis sigillo munitum." (1) LETTER 36. "VIRO "Londini. 4to Cal. Mart. 1755. REVERENDO [GEORGIO] HUDDES FORD, S T. P. Universitatis Oxoniensis Vice-Cancellario Dignissimo, S. P. D. "SAMUEL JOHNSON. “ INGRATUS planè et tibi et mihi videar, nisi quanto me gaudio affecerint, quos nuper mihi honores (te, credo, auctore), decrevit Senatus Academicus, literarum, quo tamen nihil levius, officio, significem: ingratus etiam, nisi comitatem, quâ vir eximius (2) mihi vestri testimonium amoris in manus tradidit, agnoscam et laudem. Si quid est, undè rei tam gratæ accedat gratia, hoc ipso magis mihi placet, quod eo tempore in ordines Academicos denuò cooptatus sim, quo tuam imminuere auctoritatem, famamque Oxonii lædere, omnibus modis conantur homines vafri, nec tamen acuti : quibus egi, prout viro umbratico licuit, semper restiti, semper restiturus. Qui enim, inter has rerum procellas, vel tibi vel Academiæ defuerit, illum virtuti et literis, sibique et posteris, defuturum existimo. Vale." (1) The original is in my possession. the collection of Louis Pocock, Esq. 1835.] .B. [It is now in (2) We may conceive what a high gratification it must have been to Johnson to receive his diploma from the hands of the great Dr. King, whose principles were so congenial with his own.-B. 66 LETTER 37. TO THE REV. THOMAS WARTON, [London,] March 20. 1755. "DEAR SIR,-After I received my diploma, I wrote you a letter of thanks, with a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, and sent another to Mr. Wise; but have heard from nobody since, and begin to think myself forgotten. It is true, I sent you a double letter, and you may fear an expensive correspondent; but I would have taken it kindly, if you had returned it treble; and what is a double letter to a petty king, that having fellowship and fines, can sleep without a Modus in his head? (1) "Dear Mr. Warton, let me hear from you, and tell me something, I care not what, so I hear it but from you. Something, I will tell you: I hope to see my Dictionary bound and lettered, next week; - vastâ mole superbus. And I have a great mind to come to Oxford at Easter; but you will not invite me. Shall I come uninvited, or stay here where nobody perhaps would miss me if I went? A hard choice! But such is the world to, dear Sir, yours, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON."(2) 1) ["These fellowships are pretty things; WARTON'S Progress of Discontent. (2) The following extract of a letter from Mr. Warton to his brother will show his first sentiments on this great work: 19th April, 1755. The Dictionary is arrived; the preface is oble. There is a grammar prefixed, and the history of the anguage is pretty full; but you may plainly perceive strokes of laxity and indolence. They are two most unwieldy volumes. I have written him an invitation. I fear his preface will disgust, by the expression of his consciousness of superiority, and of his contempt of patronage. The Rawlinson benefaction it By this, I suppose, is meant the Anglo-Saxon professorship which was founded in 1750, but did not take effect before 1795. — HALL VOI.. LETTER 38. - TO THE SAME. "[London,] March 25. 1755. "DEAR SIR, Though not to write, when a man can write so well, is an offence sufficiently heinous, yet I shall pass it by. I am very glad that the Vice-Chancellor was pleased with my note. I shall impatiently expect you at London, that we may consider what to do next. I intend in the winter to open a Bibliothèque, and remember, that you are to subscribe a sheet a year: let us try, likewise, if we cannot persuade your brother to subscribe another. My book is now coming in luminis oras. What will be its fate I know not, nor think much, because thinking is to no purpose. It must stand the censure of the great vulgar, and the small; of those that understand it, and that understand it not. But in all this, I suffer not alone; every writer has the same difficulties, and, perhaps, every writer talks of them more than he thinks. "You will be pleased to make my compliments to all my friends; and be so kind, at every idle hour, as to remember, dear Sir, yours, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON.' Dr. Adams told me, that this scheme of a Bibliothèque was a serious one: for upon his visiting him one day, he found his parlour floor covered with parcels of foreign and English literary journals, and he told Dr. Adams he meant to undertake a Review. "How, sir, (said Dr. Adams,) can you think of won't do tor Johnson, which is this. -a professorship of 80%. per annum, which is not to take place these forty years; a fellowship to Hertford College, which is too ample for them to receive agreeably to Newton's statutes; and a fellowship to St. John's College. Neither of the last are to take place these forty years.". |