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."

[1730.] 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. Desidiæ 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 fellowcollegians. 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, 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 Spenser, Mr. Hawkins the Poetry Professor, Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackstone, and others," not forgetting See Nash's History of Worcestershire, Vol. I. p. 529.

Cor. et Ad.-Line 32: Dele. "Spenser." He was of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge.

1 Hawkins has preserved some characteristic traits of his behaviour. "There was a young gentleman of the college named Meekes, whose exercises he could not bear to hear commended, and whenever he declaimed or disputed in the hall Johnson would retire to the furthest corner thereof, that he might be out of the reach of his voice." Hawkins is accountable for the uncharitable insinuation here conveyed. Johnson had,

no doubt, some other reason for his behaviour. Again, when a servant went round to see that the students were in their rooms, "Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and would frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have insured him from cenand, further, would join as they called it, the

sure,

in hunting,'
servitor."

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 singing birds."

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 inquiry all round the University, and having found that Mr. Bateman, of Christ-Church, 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 secondhand 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 Christ-Churchmen, and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money, and somebody 1 having set a pair of new shoes at his door, he threw them away with indignation. How must we feel when we read such an anecdote of Samuel Johnson!

[1731.] His spirited refusal of an eleemosynary supply of shoes, arose, no doubt, from a proper pride. But, considering his ascetick 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

1 "A gentleman of his college, the father of an eminent clergyman now

living," is Hawkins's mysterious descrip tion of the donor of the shoes.

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.

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, that petite morale, in which, it must be confessed, our great moralist was more deficient than his best friends could fully justify. Dr. Adams paid Johnson this high compliment. He said to me at Oxford, in 1776, "I was his nominal tutor, but he was above my mark." When I repeated it to Johnson, his eyes flashed with grateful satisfaction, and he exclaimed, "That was liberal and noble."

And now (I had almost said poor) Samuel Johnson returned to his native city, destitute, and not knowing how he should gain even a decent livelihood. His father's misfortunes in trade rendered him unable to support his son; and for some time there appeared no means by which he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father died.1

if the entry of his name were merely formal it ought to have been continuous and uninterrupted.

But, so far, we have dealt with what Mr. Boswell would call "circumstances of probable conjecture." Hawkins now comes in aid with positive statement. "The time of his continuance at Oxford," he says (p. 16), "is divisible into two periods, the former whereof commenced on the 31st day of October, 1728, and determined in December, 1729, when, as appears by a note in his diary in these words-'1729, Dec. S. J., Oxonio rediit,' he left that place, the reason whereof was a failure of pecuniary supplies from his father " (this departure exactly coinciding with the blank in the commons' roll); "but meeting with another source, the bounty, as it is supposed, of one or more of the members of the Cathedral, he returned, and made up the whole of his residenceabout three years." Nothing can be more explicit, or more consistent with Boswell's narrative, with the statement that Dr. Adams was his "nominal" tutor in 1731, with the fact of his choosing a tutor for Dr. Taylor in the year 1730, and with the presumptive evidence of the book of commons.

The source of the assistance is not so clear. "It must, I think, have been the gift of the college, or it would have been charged to Johnson, whatever might have been the quarter from which he derived the money to pay the bill. If we may guess the course of events from the materials we possess, I should say that Johnson, just before the Christmas vacation, informed the tutor of his inability to remain at college; that it was then settled that he should return home, and consult with his father; and that, in the two or three weeks which elapsed before he set out, his ordinary 'battles' were supplied gratis. The result, we may presume, of his Lichfield visit was an announcement to the tutor that he could not raise funds to complete his residence, and the result of the announcement, that the college, in consideration of his great learning and abilities, resolved that he should have his battles' free."-Letter of the Rev. Whitwell Elwin to the Editor.

Johnson found the house filled with his cousins, the Fords, who had come to live there on the death of their father. Michael Johnson was at this time a bankrupt, as his son told Hawkins. He had embarked in a tanning speculation, and

The state of poverty in which he died, appears from a note in one of Johnson's little diaries of the following year, which strongly displays his spirit and virtuous dignity of mind. "1732, Julii 15. Undecim aureos deposui, quo die quicquid ante matris funus (quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperari licet, viginti scilicet libras accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda est. Interea, ne paupertate vires animi languescant, nec in flagitia egestas abigat, cavendum. -I layed by eleven guineas on this day, when I received twenty pounds, being all that I have reason to hope for out of my father's effects, previous to the death of my mother; an event which I pray GOD may be very remote. I now, therefore, see that I must make my own fortune. Meanwhile, let me take care that the powers of my mind may not be debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any criminal act."

Johnson was so far fortunate, that the respectable character of his parents, and his own merit, had, from his earliest years, secured him a kind reception in the best families at Lichfield. Among these I can mention Mr. Howard, Dr. Swinfen, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Levett, Captain Garrick,1 father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above all, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley," Register of the Prerogative Court of Lichfield, whose character, long after his decease, Dr. Johnson has, in his life of Edmund Smith, thus drawn in the glowing colours of gratitude:

"Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that, at least, my gratitude made me worthy of his notice.

"He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy; yet he never received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all

Mr. Warton informs me, "that this early friend of Johnson was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged 17, in 1698; and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the Gentleman's Magazine. One of them is a translation of

"My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent," &c.

was defrauded by an assistant. One of the happiest exertions of Mr. Croker's critical instinct is worth recording here. Johnson's definition of "excise" led him to suspect some personal motive for such hostility. He actually found there had been a contest between Johnson's father and the commissioners-the local justices before whom they had an information, refusing to convict their fellow citizen.

1 Captain Garrick was on foreign service from 1731 to 1736, and his son David was writing out to him the engaging letters that are to be found in Mr. Forster's "Goldsmith" (book iii. chap. ii.), and which present so agreeable a picture of Lichfield society. From them we find that Hector, Johnson's schoolfellow, had become a surgeon, and was attending the Garrick family.