Where'er they fly their lovers' ghosts pursue, Vex every eye, and every bosom tear; Then melt, ye fair, while crowds around you sigh, With pity soften every awful grace, So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore. 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 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 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 thirty-first of October, 1728, being then in his nineteenth year. 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, author 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 instructer 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 much. 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 much nonchalance as I am now talking to you. I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor." BOSWELL. "That, sir, was great fortitude of mind." JOHNSON. "No, sir; stark insensibility k." 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 William Jorden, M. A. June 7, 1708.-B. D. April 8, 1728. Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627. i Oxford, 20th March, 1776. * 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. of imagination, and force of language, would probably have produced something sublime upon the gunpowder plot. To apologize 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. He had a love and respect for Jorden, not for his literature, but for his worth. "Whenever," said he, "a young man becomes Jorden's pupil, he becomes his son." Having given such a specimen of his poetical powers, he was asked by Mr. Jorden, to translate Pope's Messiah into Latin verse, as a Christmas exercise. He performed it with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly a manner, that he obtained great applause from it, which ever after kept him high in the estimation of his college, and, indeed, of all the university. It is said, that Mr. Pope expressed himself concerning it in terms of strong approbation. Dr. Taylor told me, that it was first printed for old Mr. Johnson, without the knowledge of his son, who was very angry when he heard of it. A Miscellany of Poems collected by a person of the name of Husbands, was published at Oxford in 1731. In that miscellany Johnson's translation of the Messiah appeared, with this modest motto from Scaliger's Poeticks, Ex alieno ingenio poeta, ex suo tantum versificator1. I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made to this and other specimens of Johnson's Latin poetry. I acknowledge myself not competent to decide on a question of such extreme nicety. But I am satisfied with the just and discriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by my friend Mr. Courtenay : And with like ease his vivid lines assume Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress; 1 It appeared, with his name, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1752, p. 184. From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase, The morbid melancholy, which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities, and that aversion to regular life, which at a very early period marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all bis labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. How wonderful, how unsearchable are the ways of God! Johnson, who was blest with all the powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time visited with a disorder so afflictive, that m Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson, by John Courtenay, esq. M. P. VOL. I. D |