Life of Johnson Volume I Part 75

[796] A Fellow of Pembroke College, of Johnson's time, described the college servants as in 'the state of servitude the most miserable that can be conceived amongst so many masters.' He says that 'the kicks and cuffs and bruises they submit to ent.i.tle them, when those who were displeased relent,' to the compensation that is afforded by draughts of ale. 'There is not a college servant, but if he have learnt to suffer, and to be officious, and be inclined to tipple, may forget his cares in a gallon or two of ale every day of his life.' _Dr. Johnson:--His Friends, &c_., p. 45.

[797] It was against the Butler that Johnson, in his college days, had written an epigram:--

'Quid mirum Maro quod digne canit arma virumque, Quid quod putidulum nostra Camoena sonat?

Limosum n.o.bis Promus dat callidus haustum; Virgilio vires uva Falerna dedit.

Carmina vis nostri scribant meliora Poetae?

Ingenium jubeas purior haustus alat.'

[798] Pope, _Eloisa to Abelard_, 1. 38.

[799] Johnson or Warton misquoted the line. It stands:--'Mitt.i.t aromaticas vallis Saronica nubes.' Husbands's _Miscellany_, p. 112.

[800] De Quincey (_Works_, xiii. 162), after saying that Johnson did not understand Latin 'with the elaborate and circ.u.mstantial accuracy required for the editing critically of a Latin cla.s.sic,'

continues:--'But if he had less than that, he also had more: he _possessed_ that language in a way that no extent of mere critical knowledge could confer. He wrote it genially, not as one translating into it painfully from English, but as one using it for his original organ of thinking. And in Latin verse he expressed himself at times with the energy and freedom of a Roman.'

[801] Mr. Jorden. See _ante_, p. 59.

[802] Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773) says that Johnson looked at the ruins at St. Andrew's 'with a strong indignation. I happened to ask where John Knox was buried. Dr. Johnson burst out, "I hope in the highway, I have been looking at his reformations."'

[803] In Reasmus Philipps's _Diary_ it is recorded that in Pembroke College early in every November 'was kept a great Gaudy [feast], when the Master dined in public, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to observe) went round the fire in the hall.' _Notes & Queries_, 2nd S. x. 443.

[804] Communicated by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, who had the original. BOSWELL. In the imaginary college which was to be opened by _The Club_ at St. Andrew's, Chambers was to be the professor of the law of England. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773; also _post_, July 5, 1773 and March 30, 1774.

[805] I presume she was a relation of Mr. Zachariah Williams, who died in his eighty-third year, July 12, 1755. When Dr. Johnson was with me at Oxford, in 1755, he gave to the Bodleian Library a thin quarto of twenty-one pages, a work in Italian, with an English translation on the opposite page. The English t.i.tlepage is this: 'An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Variation of the Magnetical Needle, &c. By Zachariah Williams. London, printed for Dodsley, 1755.' The English translation, from the strongest internal marks, is unquestionably the work of Johnson. In a blank leaf, Johnson has written the age, and time of death, of the authour Z. Williams, as I have said above. On another blank leaf, is pasted a paragraph from a newspaper, of the death and character of Williams, which is plainly written by Johnson. He was very anxious about placing this book in the Bodleian: and, for fear of any omission or mistake, he entered, in the great Catalogue, the t.i.tle-page of it with his own hand.'

WARTON.--BOSWELL.

In this statement there is a slight mistake. The English account, which was written by Johnson, was the _original_ the Italian was a _translation_, done by Baretti. See _post_, end of 1755. MALONE. Johnson has twice entered in his own hand that 'Zachariah Williams, died July 12, 1755, in his eighty-third year,' and also on the t.i.tle-page that he was 82.

[806] See _ante_, p. 133.

[807] The compliment was, as it were, a mutual one. Mr. Wise urged Thomas Warton to get the degree conferred before the _Dictionary_ was published. 'It is in truth,' he wrote, 'doing ourselves more honour than him, to have such a work done by an Oxford hand, and so able a one too, and will show that we have not lost all regard for good letters, as has been too often imputed to us by our enemies.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 228.

[808] 'In procuring him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma at Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[809] 'Lately fellow of Trinity College, and at this time Radclivian librarian, at Oxford. He was a man of very considerable learning, and eminently skilled in Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities. He died in 1767.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[810] No doubt _The Rambler_.

[811] 'Collins (the poet) was at this time at Oxford, on a visit to Mr.

Warton; but labouring under the most deplorable languor of body, and dejection of mind.' WARTON. BOSWELL. Johnson, writing to Dr. Warton on March 8, 1754, thus speaks of Collins:-'I knew him a few years ago full of hopes, and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs.' Wooll's _Warton_ 1. 219.

Again, on Dec. 24, 1754:--'Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration.'

_Ib_. p. 229. Again, on April 15, 1756:--'That man is no common loss.

The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty: but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.' _Ib_.

p. 239. See _post_, beginning of 1763.

[812] 'Of publishing a volume of observations on the best of Spenser's works. It was hindered by my taking pupils in this College.'

WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[813] 'Young students of the lowest rank at Oxford are so called.'

WARTON.--BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773.

[814] 'His Dictionary.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[815] Johnson says (_Works_, viii. 403) that when Collins began to feel the approaches of his dreadful malady 'with the usual weakness of men so diseased he eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce.'

[816] 'Petrarch, finding nothing in the word _eclogue_ of rural meaning, supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own pastorals aeglogues, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by subsequent writers.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 390.

[817] 'Of the degree at Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[818] This verse is from the long-lost _Bellerophon_, a tragedy by Euripides. It is preserved by Suidas. CHARLES BURNEY. 'Alas! but wherefore alas? Man is born to sorrow.'

[819]

'Sento venir per allegrezza un tuono Que fremer l'aria, e rimbombar fa l'onrle:-- Odo di squille,' &c.

_Orlando Furioso_. c. xlvi. s. 2.

[820] 'His degree had now past, according to the usual form, the surrages of the heads of Colleges; but was not yet finally granted by the University. It was carried without a single dissentient voice.'

WARTON. BOSWELL.

[821] 'On Spenser.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[822] Lord Eldon wrote of him:--'Poor Tom Warton! He was a tutor at Trinity; at the beginning of every term he used to send to his pupils to know whether they would _wish_ to attend lecture that term.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 302.

[823] The fields north of Oxford.

[824] 'Of the degree.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[825] 'Princ.i.p.al of St. Mary Hall at Oxford. He brought with him the diploma from Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. Dr. King (_Anec_. p. 196) says that he was one of the Jacobites who were presented to the Pretender when, in September 1750, he paid a stealthy visit to England. The Pretender in 1783 told Sir Horace Mann that he was in London in that very month and year and had met fifty of his friends, among whom was the Earl of Westmoreland, the future Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

Mahon's _England_, iv. II. Hume places the visit in 1753. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 462. See also in Boswell's _Hebrides_, the account of the Young Pretender. In 1754, writes Lord Shelburne, 'Dr. King in his speech upon opening the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, before a full theatre introduced three times the word _Redeat_, pausing each time for a considerable s.p.a.ce, during which the most unbounded applause shook the theatre, which was filled with a vast body of peers, members of parliament, and men of property. Soon after the rebellion [of 1745], speaking of the Duke of c.u.mberland, he described him as a man, _qui timet omnia prater Deum_. I presented this same Dr. King to George III.

in 1760.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 35.

[826] 'I suppose Johnson means that my _kind intention_ of being the _first_ to give him the good news of the degree being granted was _frustrated_, because Dr. King brought it before my intelligence arrived.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[827] Dr. Huddesford, President of Trinity College.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[828] Extracted from the Convocation-Register, Oxford. BOSWELL.

[829] The Earl of Arran, 'the last male of the ill.u.s.trious House of Ormond,' was the third Chancellor in succession that that family had given to the University. The first of the three, the famous Duke of Ormond, had, on his death in 1688, been succeeded by his grandson, the young Duke. (Macaulay's _England_, iii. 159). He, on his impeachment and flight from England in 1715, was succeeded by his brother, the Earl of Arran. Richardson, writing in 1754 (_Carres_. ii. 198), said of the University, 'Forty years ago it chose a Chancellor in despite of the present reigning family, whose whole merit was that he was the brother of a perjured, yet weak, rebel.' On Arran's death in 1758, the Earl of Westmoreland, 'old dull Westmoreland' as Walpole calls him (_Letters_, i. 290), was elected. It was at his installation that Johnson clapped his hands till they were sore at Dr. King's speech (_post_, 1759). 'I hear,' wrote Walpole of what he calls _the coronation at Oxford_, 'my Lord Westmoreland's own retinue was all be-James'd with true-blue ribands.' _Letters_, iii. 237. It is remarkable that this n.o.bleman, who in early life was a Whig, had commanded 'the body of troops which George I. had been obliged to send to Oxford, to teach the University the only kind of pa.s.sive obedience which they did not approve.' Walpole's _George II_, iii. 167.

[830] The original is in my possession, BOSWELL.

[831] We may conceive what a high gratification it must have been to Johnson to receive his diploma from the hands of the great Dr. KING, whose principles were so congenial with his own. BOSWELL.

[832] Johnson here alludes, I believe, to the charge of disloyalty brought against the University at the time of the famous contested election for Oxfordshire in 1754. A copy of treasonable verses was found, it was said, near the market-place in Oxford, and the grand jury made a presentment thereon. 'We must add,' they concluded, 'that it is the highest aggravation of this crime to have a libel of a nature so false and scandalous, published in a famous University, &c. _Gent. Mag_.

xxiv. 339. A reward of 200 was offered in the _London Gazette_ for the detection of the writer or publisher,' _Ib_. p. 377.

[833] A single letter was a single piece of paper; a second piece of paper, however small, or any inclosure const.i.tuted a double letter; it was not the habit to prepay the postage. The charge for a single letter to Oxford at this time was three-pence, which was gradually increased till in 1812 it was eight-pence. _Penny Cyclo_. xviii. 455.