AT

CHAPTER II.

T the age of nineteen Samuel Johnson entered at Pembroke College on the 31st of October, 1728. An account of his first evening at the University was. given by Dr. Adams, who was present on the occasion. His father accompanied him, and they were introduced to Mr. Jorden, who was appointed to be the lad's tutor.The new undergraduate's uncouth appearance caused some surprise, but he was modest and respectful, and for a time took no part in the conversation. At length, however, he could keep silence no longer, and joined in with a quotation from Macrobius, an author who was probably little known, except by name, to any other of the party. Those who wish to know something of life at Oxford in the early part of the last century should read the opening chapter in Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill's carefully written work, "Johnson, his Friends and his Critics," from which the present writer has derived much valuable information.

The University at that time offered few of the advantages which its members now enjoy. There were no inducements for the undergraduates to read, and, if they wished to do so, it was only in a few colleges that the tutors' lectures were worth attending. A degree was conferred,

as a matter of course, after the requisite number of terms had been kept. "The one very powerful incentive to learning," writes Johnson, in one of his "Idlers," "is the genius of the place;" but it is not every undergraduate who would be inspired by this influence, and the want of good college tutors was felt long after the "Idler's" time. More than a century later, a raw Yorkshire youth, "incredibly raw," as he himself says, with an ardent thirst for knowledge, and destined afterwards to attain high academical distinction, was taken by his father to Oxford to begin his University career. It is interesting to contrast the account which Dr. Mark Pattison gave of his first impression of college life with Johnson's experience on a similar occasion, and it is not difficult to find certain points of resemblance. Soon after he arrived at Oxford, the young undergraduate, who had surprised his tutor by quoting Macrobius, was asked to show his abilities as a Latin poet by rendering Pope's "Messiah" into hexameters. The style of the translation is not Virgilian, though his friend, Mr. Thomas Warton, afterwards Professor of Poetry at Oxford, did not venture to tell him so when discussing the poem on a subsequent occasion, and got out of the difficulty by speaking of one of the lines as "very sonorous." Pope, to whom the translation was shown by a son of his old friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, declared that the "writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity whether his or mine is the original." It afterwards appeared in a miscellany of poems, published at Oxford in 1731, and edited by Mr. John Husband, a contemporary of Johnson at Pembroke College. In the preface to the volume the editor writes: "The Trans

lation 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." But perhaps the most curious part of the work is the circumstance, hitherto unnoticed, that among the list of subscribers appears the name of Richard Savage for twenty copies. This piece of extravagance is very characteristic of that eccentric creature, but it is not easy to explain, unless it was a compliment to Johnson, with whom he was afterwards on terms of great intimacy. This strange friendship, however, is not supposed to have commenced till some years later, but any attempts to solve the difficulty would necessarily be mere guess work.

The duration of Johnson's college career has given rise to much controversy, though there is no part of his life which ought to be better known. Dr. Adams, who was a fellow of Pembroke College when Johnson first entered, and Taylor, another Oxford contemporary, though at a different college, were both well acquainted with Boswell, and furnished him with particulars for the "Life." Boswell asserted that Johnson was at Oxford for about three years, and Hawkins, whose biography had previously been published, gave practically the same account. Boswell's accuracy has been so often proved, and his opportunities of obtaining information on the subject were so exceptional, that it is difficult not to accept his statement; but Croker, from an inspection of the college books, showed, almost beyond a doubt, that Johnson could not have been in residence for more than fourteen months. The difficulty, in this view

of the case, was to account for the fact that Johnson himself spoke of his college intercourse with Taylor, who matriculated on June 27, 1730, nearly six months after Johnson (if Croker's view is correct) had left the University. This discrepancy has now been satisfactorily explained by Dr. George Birkbeck Hill, who discovered in the Christ Church books the names of two John Taylors, one of whom matriculated February 24, 1729, only four months after Johnson. Boswell, in this instance, therefore, seems to have been mistaken, and though Johnson's name does not finally disappear from the college books till October, 1731, he was an actual member for only fourteen months, and his residence virtually came to an end in December, 1729, when he made a note, “1729. Dec. S. J. Oxonio rediit."

Many stories have been told, some of them on Johnson's own authority,'of his insubordination at college, but there is reason to think that remorse induced him to exaggerate his failings, and Boswell heard from Dr. Adams that he was a regular attendant at the college lectures.

Johnson had not many opportunities in after life of meeting his Oxford contemporaries, with the exception of Adams and Taylor. The latter has been already referred to, and Adams, who spoke of himself as Johnson's "nominal tutor," continued through life his constant and valued friend. He was one of those present on the first night of Johnson's tragedy of "Irene," and gave Boswell an account of that memorable occasion. When his old pupil first revisited Oxford, in 1754, he appears to have been absent, but after he became head of his college, in 1775, Johnson was several times a guest at the Master's

Lodge. Dr. Adams was also rector of St. Chad's, in Shrewsbury, where he received a visit from Johnson and the Thrales, during their Welsh tour in 1774. He survived his old college friend about four years, and died in 1789, aged eighty-two.

Of "Honest Jack Meeke of Pembroke College," as his name appears scribbled at the end of the college buttery books, there is little to be said, though Johnson was, in those days, very jealous of his superiority, and sat as far from him as possible at college lectures, so as not to hear him construe. Boswell gives an account, which he had from Mr. Warton, of a very cordial meeting between the former rivals, when Johnson was at Oxford in 1754. During a later visit to the University, in 1776, we hear of two other college companions, whose names, by this chance mention, have been rescued from oblivion. "Ah, here," said Johnson, in the Pembroke common room, "I used to play at draughts with Phil Jones and Fludyer. Jones loved beer, and did not get very forward in the Church. Fludyer turned out a scoundrel and a Whig, and said he was ashamed of having been bred at Oxford. He had a living at Putney, and got under the eye of some retainers. of the Court at that time, and so became a violent Whig. ." Fludyer's change of politics was not of much service to him in obtaining preferment, as it appears from the parish registers that he remained perpetual curate of Putney till his death, which occurred in 1773.

One of the most interesting events in Johnson's life, though it did not happen till 1778, relates to his college career. He himself briefly mentions the incident in the "Prayers and Meditations;" but Boswell's account of the