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."" 1 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." 1 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. '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 : 66 "Mea nec Falernæ Temperant vites, neque Formiani Pocula colles."-Hor. Od. 1, 20, 10. Quid mirum Maro quod dignè canit arma virumque, 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 bonæ paulo plus artis Athenæ." Hor. Epist. ii. 2, 43. Quas Natura dedit dotes, Academia promi; Johnson repeated this idea in the Latin verses on the termination of his Dictionary, entitled гNo1 EEAYTON, 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. |