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. P. 9, 10. [Sir John Hawkins thus states this circumstance: Hawk. A neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Andrew Corbett, having a son, who had been educated in the same school with Johnson, whom he was about to send to Pembroke College in Oxford, a proposal was made and accepted, that Johnson should attend this son thither, in quality of assistant in his studies; and accordingly, on the 31st day of October, 1728, they were both entered, Corbett as a gentleman commoner, and Johnson as a commoner. Whether it was discouragement in the outset of their studies, or any other ground of disinclination that moved him to it, is not known, but this is certain, that young Corbett could not brook submission to a man who seemed to be little more learned than himself, and that having a father living, who was able to dispose of him in various other ways, he, after about two years' stay, left the college, and went home. But the case of Johnson was far different; his fortunes were at sea; his title to a stipend was gone, and all that he could obtain from the father of Mr. Corbett was an agreement, during his continuance at college, to pay for his commons1.] Mr. Murphy, in his Life of Johnson, follows Hawkins; but the date of [Mr. Corbett's entry into and retirement from college does not tally with either Boswell's or Hawkins's account. Andrew Corbett appears, from the books of Pembroke College (as Dr. Hall informs me), to have been admitted 24th February, 1727, and his name was removed from the books February 21, 1732 so that, as Johnson entered in Oct. 1728, and does not appear to have returned after Christmas, 1729, Corbett was of the University twenty months before, and twelve or thirteen months after Johnson. And, on re He, however, went to Oxford, and was entered a commoner of Pembroke College, on the 31st 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 Oxon1." 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 ference to the college books, it appears that Corbett's residence was so irregular, and so little coincident with Johnson's, that there is no reason to suppose that Johnson was employed either as the private tutor of Corbett, as Hawkins states, or his companion, as Boswell suggests.-ED.] Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627.-BOSWELL. 2 [There are, as Dr. Hall observes to me, many small errors in Mr. Boswell's account of Johnson's college life, and particularly as to the relation between him and Mr. Jorden. It is not the custom at Pembroke to assign particular tutors to individual students. There are two college tutors appointed for the whole. Mr. Jorden was therefore no more the tutor of Johnson than of any other student, and Johnson was equally the pupil of the other college tutor; though, as the latter was probably the tutor in mathematics, it seems likely that Johnson did not pay him much attention. Mr. Boswell either did not consult Dr. Adams, or did not remember accurately what the Doctor must have told him on these points.-ED.] p. 9. not, it seems, a man of such abilities as we should conceive requisite for the instructor of Samuel Johnson, who [would oftener risk the payment of a Hawk. small fine than attend his lectures; nor was he studious to conceal the reason of his absence. Upon occasion of one such imposition, he said to Jorden, "Sir, you have sconced me two-pence for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny'."] He 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 Oxford, was wrong or irreverent to my tutor." BOSWELL. 1776. "That, sir, was great fortitude of mind." JOHNSON. "No, sir; stark insensibility." 20 Mar. [When he told this anecdote to Mrs. Piozzi, he Piozzi, laughed very heartily at the recollection of his own in- P. 23. solence, and said they endured it from him with wonderful acquiescence, and a gentleness that, whenever he thought of it, astonished himself. He said, too, that when he made his first declamation, he wrote over but one copy, and that coarsely; and having given it into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed, was obliged to begin by chance and continue on how he could, for he had got but little of it by heart; so, fairly trusting to his present powers for immediate supply, he finished by adding [It has been thought worth while to preserve this anecdote, as an early specimen of the antithetical style of Johnson's conversation.-ED.] It cught 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. p. 23. Piozzi, astonishment to the applause of all who knew how little was owing to study. A prodigious risk, however, said some one: "Not at all (exclaims Johnson): no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim."] 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 of imagination, and force of language, would probably have produced something sublime upon the Gunpowder Plot. To apologise 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 conHawk. cerning it in terms of strong approbation. [The poem having been shown to him by a son of Dr. Arbuthnot, then a gentleman commoner of Christ p. 13. 1 [If Dr. Hall's inferences from the dates in the college books be correct, this must have been the Christmas immediately following his entry into college. -ED.] church, was read, and returned with this encomium: "The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original."] 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 versificator." 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, [in his Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson.] "And with like ease his vivid lines assume And with a Roman's ardour think and write. While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name [John Husbands, the editor of this Miscellany, was a cotemporary of Johnson at Pembroke College, having been admitted a fellow and A. M. in 1728. -HALL.] [This refers to a Latin ode addressed to Mrs. Thrale from the Isle of Skie, which will be mentioned in its proper place, under 6th September, 1773.—Ed.] VOL. I. Ꭰ |