CHAPTER XXV.

JOHNSON.

DURING Panting's Mastership the greatest of the sons of Pembroke, SAMUEL JOHNSON (born September 18, 1709), entered as a commoner and generosi filius, October 31, 1728. Michael Johnson's fortunes were then at a low ebb, and it has been asked how it was found possible to send his son to College. Boswell says: '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.' In the previous century young men frequently took their tutor with them to College. Hawkins states that the proposal came from Mr. Andrew Corbett, of Longnor, and was accepted. Croker, however, points out that the young gentleman-commoner matriculated twenty months before Johnson, viz. May 3, 1727. Boswell certainly implies that Johnson went to Pembroke on the strength of the proposed bear-leading reversed, but he expressly adds that no assistance was given from that quarter. How then was he supported at College? Croker suggests that he was sent thither by his godfather, Dr. Swynfen, a Lichfield physician, who was himself from Pembroke '. Among the contributors to the building carried out at the close of the seventeenth century was his brother (M.P. for Tamworth 1708–10, 1723-26), Mr. Richard Swynfen, of Swynfen. There were several Swynfens at the College. Johnson's humane care of Mrs. Desmoulins may have been induced by gratitude towards her father. On the other hand, Boswell records that he was deeply incensed when a Latin paper, in which he had eloquently described to Dr. Swynfen, in the College vacation of 1729, a violent attack of hypochondria from which he

1 SAMUEL, son of Francis SWYNFEN, of Stafford, gent., matr. March 31, 1696, aged sixteen; B.A. 1699; M.A. (from New Inn Hall) 1703; B. Med. 1706; D.Med. (from Pembroke) 1712; appointed Lecturer of Grammar for the University July 16, 1705 (Hearne, Collections, i. 8); died May 10, 1736.

was now for the first time suffering, was shown by the latter to others, and that he was never fully reconciled to him.

The following entry is in the Caution Book :

'Oct. 31, 1728. Recd then of Mr Samuel Johnson, Comer of Pem. Coll: ye sum of seven Pounds' for his Caution, which is to remain in ye Hands of ye Bursars till ye said Mr Johnson shall depart ye said College leaving ye same fully discharg'd.

Recd by me, John Ratcliff Bursar.'

Adams, afterwards Master, was present when the old bookseller, newly arrived by the Lichfield stage, brought his son round to the College.

'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. . . . He 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 sate silent, till, upon something which occurred in the 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.'

The following lines describe such a scene:

'When now mature in classic knowledge
The joyful youth is sent to College,
His father comes, a vicar plain
At Oxford bred-in Anna's reign.
And thus, in form of humble suitor,
Bowing, accosts a reverend tutor :
"Sir, I'm a Glo'stershire divine
And this my eldest son of nine;
My wife's ambition and my own

Was that this child should wear a gown.
I'll warrant that his good behav'our

Will justify your future favour;

And for his parts, to tell the truth,

My son's a very forward youth;

Has Horace all by heart-you'd wonder

And mouths out Homer's Greek like thunder

If you'd examine and admit him,

A scholarship would nicely fit him,

That he succeeds 'tis ten to one;

Your vote and interest, sir!-'tis done 2.”'

1 The usual sum at all Colleges in those days for a commoner.

2

Oxford Sausage, 'The Progress of Discontent,' 1746.

But if the swans of many fond parents are descended from geese, Michael Johnson's ugly duckling was for once to come to something great.

Johnson did not appear before the Vice-Chancellor to be matriculated for nearly seven weeks, a delay unusual and against the University statutes'. The following is the entry: :

'1728, Dec. 16. Sam1 Johnson, 19, Mich. fil. Lichfield Civ. Com. Stafford. gen. fil.'

WILLIAM JORDEN, his tutor (matr. C. C. C. 1702; B.A. from Pembroke 1705; M.A. 1708; B.D. 1728), founder's kin to Wightwick, was of some standing in the College. Under date 1711 is the entry: 'For ye Latine Lecture, £2 0 0. Will. Jorden' (his kinsman, Thomas Jorden, being then praelector Graecus). He became tutor and chaplain in 1720. Johnson, however, declared that Jorden 'scarcely knew a noun from a verb,' and supposed the Ramei had their name from ramus, a bough. He told Boswell in 1776: '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 was wrong or irreverent to my tutor.' BOSWELL: 'That, sir, was great fortitude of mind.' JOHNSON: No, sir; stark insensibility.' He gave Mrs. Thrale a similar account, namely, that 'meeting Mr. Jorden in the street he offered to pass without saluting him; but the tutor stopped and enquired, not roughly neither, what he had been doing. "Sliding on the ice" was the reply, and so turned away in disdain. He laughed very heartily at the recollection of his own 1 In 1581 Leicester had proposed to the University:

'Whereas the old order of Matriculation is that within 6 dayes of every Scholar's comming to Oxford he shall take an oath to observe the statutes of this University etc, and forasmuch as by the negligence and carelessness of many Hedds this hath been and dayly is omitted, insomuch that many Schollers have lived here a long time being never registered in the Universitie booke, nether at any time hearetofore swoorne to the said Universitye, and by this meanes many Papists have hearetofore and may heareafter lurke among you and be brought up by corrupt Tutors ... That no Scholler be admitted into any College or Haule unless he first before the Vicechancellour subscribe to the Articles of Religion agreed upon, take the Othe of the Queens Majesties Supremacy, sweare to observe the Statutes of the Universitie, if he be of lawful years to take an Othe, and have his name regestred in the Matriculation Boke.' It was enacted that he should do this not later than the Friday seven-night after his admission, under a fine of 40s. for every week to be paid by the Scholar and 20s. by the Head.

JOHNSON.

333

insolence, and said they endured it from him with a gentleness that, whenever he thought of it, astonished himself.' On one occasion, being fined for non-attendance, he made the rude retort, 'Sir, you have sconced me twopence for a lecture not worth a penny.' Dr. Adams, however, who was two years Johnson's senior, told Boswell that he attended his tutor's lectures and the lectures given in the hall very regularly. If Jorden was not a great clerk, he was something better, and Johnson learned to love and respect him. He said, Whenever a young man becomes Jorden's pupil, he becomes his son.' Mrs. Thrale records his saying, 'That creature would defend his pupils to the last; no young lad under his care should suffer for committing slight irregularities, while he had breath to defend or power to protect them. If I had sons to send to College, Jorden should have been their tutor.' Nevertheless, when his younger schoolfellow, John Taylor, had gained his father's consent to join him at Pembroke, Johnson, though his society' would have been a great comfort to him, fairly told Taylor that he could not, in conscience, suffer him to enter when he knew he could not have an able tutor.' He got his friend placed under Mr. Bateman, of Christ Church, of whose lectures Johnson had so high an opinion that he used to go across and get them second-hand from Taylor, until, seeing that his ragged shoes, through which his feet were appearing, were noticed by the Christ Church men, he went no more. He was too proud to accept of money, and some one, probably in delicate kindness, having set a pair of new shoes at the door of his chamber, he flung them passionately away. He told Mrs. Thrale, The history of my Oxford exploits is all between Taylor and Adams.' Adams was Jorden's cousin.

Boswell writes: 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.... To apologize 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.' Mrs. Thrale says Johnson told me 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 astonishment to the applause of all

who knew how little was owing to study.' In Pointer's Oxoniensis Academia (1749), among the Customs' is mentioned 'custom for the Undergraduates of this College to make Verses on the 5th of November, and to have two Copies of them; one to present the Master, the other to stick up in the Hall, and there to remain till a Speech on this occasion is spoken before Supper (for their Gaudy is at Supper and not Dinner).' There were formerly seven Gaudy-days, one of which was an oyster-feast, but the great Gaudy was on Powder-plot day, because of the connexion with King James. On that occasion' the Master dined in Publick, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to observe) went round the fire in the hall.' Johnson here told Warton: 'In these halls the fireplace was anciently always in the middle of the room till the Whigs removed it on one side.' There was never, however, a side fireplace in this room. Latterly the annual Gaudy-day has been the first Thursday in November, possibly because, while the seniors rejoiced in one quadrangle, the juniors, commemorating the bloody-intended Massacre by Gunpowder, 'went round the fire' in the other.

Boswell goes on: 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.' The version was shown by Dr. Arbuthnot's son, then at Christ Church, to Pope, who returned it with the words: 'The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity whether his or mine be the original.' Pope, however, was a better judge, and Johnson a better writer, of English than of Latin verse 1.

In the same hall, now the library, Johnson dined daily, and abused the muddy' coll,' or College ale, as unlikely to inspire Latin poets 2:— 'Carmina vis nostri scribant meliora poetae?

Ingenium jubeas purior haustus alat.'

'The pleasure he took,' wrote Bishop Percy to Boswell, 'in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often mentioned. But I have heard

'It was printed in the Miscellany of JOHN HUSBANDS, Fellow of Pembroke 1728. In the 'Panegyrick on Oxford Ale' (Oxford Sausage, 1746), the old October is apostrophized, however, thus:—

'Balm of my cares, sweet solace of my toils,

Hail, juice benignant!'

At Exeter, a century before, the first Lord Shaftesbury had resisted an attempt to weaken the College beer.