1729.

Etat. 20.

How seriously Johnson was impreffed with a fense of religion, even in the vigour of his youth, appears from the following paffage in his minutes kept by way of diary: Sept. 7, 1736. I have this day entered upon my 28th year. "Mayest thou, O God, enable me, for JESUS CHRIST'S fake, to spend this in fuch a manner, that I may receive comfort from it at the hour of death, and in the day of judgement! Amen."

The particular course of his reading while at Oxford, and during the time of vacation which he paffed at home, cannot be traced. Enough has been faid of his irregular mode of ftudy. He told me, that from his earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end; that he read Shakspeare at a period so early, that the fpeech of the Ghoft in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone; that Horace's Odes were the compofitions in which he took moft delight, and it was long before he liked his Epiftles and Satires. He told me what he read folidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian hiftorians, but Homer and Euripides, and now and then a little Epigram; that the study of which he was the most fond was Metaphyficks, but he had not read much, even in that way. I always thought that he did himself injuftice in his account of what he had read, and that he must have been speaking with reference to the vaft portion of study which is poffible, and to which a few scholars in the whole history of literature have attained; for when I once asked him whether a person whose name I have now forgotten, ftudied hard, he anfwered "No,

Sir. I do not believe he ftudied hard. I never
knew a man who ftudied hard. I conclude, in-
deed, from the effects, that fome men have
ftudied hard, as Bentley and Clarke." Trying
him by that criterion upon which he formed his
judgement of others, we may be abfolutely cer-
tain, both from his writings and his converfation,
that his reading was very extenfive. Dr. Adam
Smith, than whom few were better judges on this
fubject, once obferved to me, that "
me, that "Johnson
knew more books than any man alive." He had
a peculiar facility in feizing at once what was valu-
able in any book, without fubmitting to the labour
of perufing it from beginning to end. He had,
from the irritability of his conftitution, at all times,
an impatience and hurry when he either read or
wrote. A certain apprehenfion, arifing from no-
velty, made him write his firft exercife at Col-
lege twice over; but he never took that trouble
with any other compofition; and we fhall fee that
his most excellent works were ftruck off at a heat,
with rapid exertion.

Yet he appears, from his early notes or memo randums in my poffeffion, to have at various times attempted, or at leaft planned, a methodical courfe of ftudy, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his attention fteadily upon fomething without, and prevented his mind' from preying upon itfelf. Thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides's Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first fix books of the Æneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamor

VOL. I.

E

phofis,

1729.

Etat. 20.

Erat. 20.

1729. phofis, of fome parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth Satire of Juvenal; and a table, fhowing at the rate of various numbers a day, (I fuppofe verfes to be read,) what would be, in each cafe, the total amount in a week, month, and year.

No man had a more ardent love of literature, or a higher respect for it, than Johnfon. His apartment in Pembroke College was that upon the fecond floor, over the gateway. The enthusiasts of learning will ever contemplate it with veneration. One day, while he was fitting in it quite alone, Dr. Panting, then mafter of the College, whom he called "a fine Jacobite fellow," overheard him uttering this foliloquy in his ftrong emphatick voice: "Well, I have a mind to fee what is done in other places of learning. I'll go and visit the Univerfities abroad. I'll go to France and Italy. I'll go to Padua. And I'll mind my bufinefs. For an Athenian blockhead is the worst of all blockheads"."

Dr. Adams told me that Johnson, while he was. at Pembroke College, "was careffed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolickfome fellow, and paffed there the happieft 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 depreffed poverty, and irritated by disease. When I

• I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams, and Dr. Johnfon con firmed it. Bramfton, in his "Man of Tafte," has the fame thought:

"Sure, of all blockheads, fcholars are the worft.”

mentioned

mentioned to him this account as given me by 1730.

Dr. Adams, he faid, "Ah, Sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick. I was miferably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; fo I difregarded all power and all authority."

The Bishop of Dromore obferves in a letter to me, "The pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often mentioned. But I have heard him fay, what ought to be recorded to the honour of the present venerable mafter 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 expoftulations of this worthy man, whofe virtue awed him, and whofe learning he revered, made him really afhamed of himself, though I fear (faid he) I was too proud to own it.'

"I have heard from fome of his cotemporaries that he was generally feen lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young ftudents round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their ftudies, if not fpiriting them up to rebellion against the College difcipline, which in his maturer years he fo much extolled.".

He very early began to attempt keeping notes or memorandums, by way of a diary of his life. I find, in a parcel of loofe leaves, the following spirited refolution to contend against his natural indolence: Oct. 1729." Defidia valedixi; fyrenis iftius cantibus furdam pofthac aurem obverfurus.-I bid farewell to Sloth, being refolved henceforth not to listen to her fyren ftrains." I have alfo in my E 2 poffeffion

L
Etat. 21.

1730. poffeffion a few leaves of another Libellus, or little. book, entitled ANNALES, in which fome of the early particulars of his history are registered in Latin.

Etat. 21.

I do not find that he formed any clofe 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 laft. A fhort time before his death he sent to that College, a prefent of all his works, to be depofited in their library; and he had thoughts of leaving to it his houfe at Lichfield; but his friends who were about him very properly diffuaded him from it, and he bequeathed it to fome poor relations. He took a pleasure in boasting of the many eminent men who had been educated at Pembroke. In this lift are found the names of Mr. Hawkins the Poetry Profeffor, Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackftone, and others; not forgetting the celebrated popular preacher, Mr. George Whitefield, of whom, though Dr. Johnfon did not think very highly, it must be acknowledged that his eloquence was powerful, his views pious and charitable, his affiduity almost incredible; and, that fince 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 fons of Pembroke were Poets; adding, with a smile of fportive triumph, "Sir, we are a neft of finging birds."

He was not, however, blind to what he thought the defects of his own College; and I have, from

See Nash's History of Worcestershire, Vol. I. p. 529.

the