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 all1 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 Mr. Hawkins the Poetry Professor, Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackstone, and others; not forgetting 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

[Certainly not all, and those which we have are not all marked as presented by him.-HALL.]

See Nash's History of Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 529.

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 second-hand 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-church men, and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money, and somebody 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!

His spirited refusal of an eleemosynary supply of shoes arose, no doubt, from a proper pride. But, considering his ascetic 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 domi2 prevented him from having

[Authoritatively and circumstantially as this story is told, there is good reason for disbelieving it altogether. Taylor was admitted commoner of Christchurch, June 27, 1730: but it will be seen, in the notes in the next page, that Johnson left Oxford six months before.-ED.]

2 [Notwithstanding what has been said on this subject, as far as we can judge from a cursory view of the weekly account in the buttery books, Johnson ap

the advantage 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 years1.

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 connexion 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, those petites, morales, in which, it must be confessed, our great

pears to have lived as well as the other commoners and scholars, and he left no college debts.-HALL.]

[He was not quite three years a member of the college, having been entered Oct. 31, 1728, and his name having been finally removed Oct. 8, 1731. It would appear by temporary suspensions of his name, and replacements of it, as if he had contemplated an earlier departure from college, and had been induced to continue on with the hope of returning: this, however, he never did after his absence, Dec. 1729, having kept a continuous residence of sixty weeks.-HALL.] [It will be observed, that Mr. Boswell slurs over the years 1729, 1730, and 1731, under the general inference that they were all spent at Oxford; but Dr. Hall's accurate statement of dates from the college books, proves that Johnson personally left college 12th Dec. 1729, though his name remained on the books near two years longer, viz. till 8th Oct. 1731. Here then are two important years, the 21st and 22d of his age, to be accounted for; and Mr. Boswell's assertion (a little farther on), that he could not have been assistant to Anthony Blackwell, because Blackwell died in 1730, before Johnson had left college, falls to the ground. That these two years were not pleasantly or profitably spent, may be inferred from the silence of Johnson and all his friends about them. It is due to Pembroke to note particularly this absence, because that institution possesses (on the foundation of Sir J. Bennett, Lord Ossulston), two scholarships, to one of which Johnson would have been eligible, and probably (considering his claims) elected in 1730, had he been a candidate.-ED.]

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 1."

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 Hawk. him unable to support his son: [he had become insolvent, if not, as Dr. Johnson told Sir J. Hawkins, an actual bankrupt]; and for some time there appeared no means by which he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father died?.

p. 17.

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 aurcos deposui, quo die quicquid ante matris funus (quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperari licet, viginti scilicet libras accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortura fingenda

[This seems hardly consistent with the preceding facts. If Adams called himself his nominal tutor, only because the pupil was above his mark, the expression would be liberal and noble; but if he was his nominal tutor, only because he would have been his tutor if Johnson had returned, the case is different, and Boswell is, either way, guilty of an inaccuracy, which (however trifling) he would not have forgiven in Hawkins or Mrs. Piozzi. Nor does there seem any reason for the regret (disparaging towards Mr. Jorden) which Boswell expresses, that "this connexion between Johnson and Dr. Adams had not taken place;" for Johnson, as we have seen (ante, p. 32), gave Jorden the highest moral praise, by saying, that "when a young man became his pupil, he became his son." Of the regard which his pupils felt for Mr. Jorden, Dr. Hall has pointed out a remarkable instance in the Monthly Chronicle for November, 1729. "About this time, the Rev. Mr. Jorden, B. D., Fellow of Pembroke College, in Oxford, was presented by Mr. Vyse, a young gentleman, his pupil, to the rectory of Standon, in Staffordshire, vacant by the death of the Rev. Mr. Jarvis."-ED.]

2

[Among the MSS. of Pembroke College are a few little bills for books had by Mr. Walmesley of Michael Johnson, with letters from the widow, the son Nathanael, and others about payment, which declare the state of poverty she was left in.-HALL.]

est. Interea, ne paupertate vires animi languescant, nec in flagitia egestas abigat, cavendum. Ilayed 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 be not 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, father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above all, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley', Registrar of the Ecclesiastical 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 the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me.

"He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its vices or its follies; but had never neglected the cultivation

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 author of many Latin verse translations in the Gentleman's Magazine. One of them is a translation (Gent. Mag. vol. 15, p. 102) of " My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent," &c. He [was born in 1680, and] died August 3, 1751. A monument to his memory has been erected in the cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward, one of the prebendaries.-BOSWELL. [He was the son of W. Walmesley, LL.D. chancellor of the diocese of Lichfield from 1698 to 1713, who was elected M. P. for that city in 1701, and brother of Dr. Walmesley, Dean of Lichfield, who died in Sept. 1730. Johnson, and Boswell after him, spell this name Walmsley, but the true spelling is that which has been adopted in this note.-Ed.]

VOL. I.

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