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1728.

Etat. 19.

fities, where they feldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors; fo that when I came to Oxford, Dr. Adams, master of Pembroke College, told me, I was the beft qualified for the Univerfity that he had ever known come there."

In eftimating the progrefs of his mind during thefe two years, as well as in future periods of his life, we muft not regard his own hafty confeffion of idlenefs; for we fee, when he explains himself, that he was acquiring various ftores; and, indeed, he himself concluded the account, with faying, "I would not have you think I was doing nothing then." He might, perhaps, have studied more affiduously; but it may be doubted, whether fuch a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature, than if it had been confined to any fingle fpot. The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. The flesh of animals who feed excurfively, is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the fame difference between men who read as their tafte prompts, and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks?

That a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of fending his fon to the expenfive University of Oxford, at his own charge, seems very improbable. The fubject was too delicate to question Johnfon upon : But I have been affured by Dr. Taylor, that the scheme never would have taken place, had not a gentleman of Shropshire, one of his schoolfellows, fpontaneously undertaken to fupport him at Oxford, in the character of his companion; though, in fact, he never received any affiftance whatever from that gentleman.

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 prefided over Pembroke College with universal esteem, told me he was prefent, and gave me fome account of what paffed 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 fays of Robert Burton, authour of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," when elected student of Chrift Church; "for form's fake, though he wanted not a tutor, he was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxon."

• Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721. p. 628.

His father feemed very full of the merits of his fon, and told the company he 1728. was a good scholar, and a poet, and wrote Latin verses. His figure and manner Etat. 19. appeared strange to them; but he behaved modeftly, and fat filent, till upon fomething which occurred in the course of converfation, he fuddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius; and thus he gave the first impression of that more extenfive reading in which he had indulged himself.

His tutor, Mr. Jorden, fellow of Pembroke, was not, it feems, a man of fuch abilities as we fhould conceive requifite for the inftructor of Samuel Johnson, who 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 inftructions. 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 fixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I anfwered, I had been sliding in ChristChurch meadow. And this I faid with as much non-chalance 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 infenfibility *.'

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The fifth of November was at that time kept with great folemnity at Pembroke College, and exercises upon the fubject 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 fomething fublime upon the gunpowder plot. To apologise for his neglect, he gave in a fhort copy of verses, entitled Somnium, containing a common thought; "that the Muse had come to him in his fleep, and whifpered that it did not become him to write on fuch fubjects as politicks; he should confine himself to humbler themes:" but the verfification was truly Virgilian.

He had a love and respect for Jorden, not for his literature, but for his worth. "Whenever (faid he) a young man becomes Jorden's pupil, he

becomes his fon."

Having given fuch a fpecimen of his poetical powers, he was afked by Mr. Jorden to tranflate Pope's Meffiah into Latin verfe, as a Christmas exercife. He performed it with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly a manner,

Oxford, 20th March, 1776.

2 It ought to be remembered, that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his literary as well as moral exercifes, to overcharge his defects. Dr. Adams informed me, that he attended his tutor's lectures, and alfo the lectures in the College Hall, very regularly.

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that he obtained great applause from it, which ever after kept him high in the eftimation of his College, and, indeed, of all the University.

It is faid, that Mr. Pope expreffed himfelf concerning it in terms of strong approbation. Dr. Taylor told me, that it was first printed for old Mr. Johnson, without the knowledge of his fon, who was very angry when he heard of it. A mifcellany of Poems, collected by a person of the name of Hufbands, was published at Oxford in 1731. In that mifcellany Johnson's Tranflation of the Meffiah appeared, with this modeft motto from Scaliger's Poeticks, "Ex alieno ingenio Poeta, ex fuo tantum verfificator.”

I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made to this and other fpecimens of Johnson's Latin Poetry. I acknowledge myself not competent to decide on a queftion of fuch extreme nicety. But I am fatisfied with the juft and difcriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by my friend Mr. Courtenay.

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"Imbibes our fun through all its fwelling veins,

"And grows a native of Britannia's plains "."

The "morbid melancholy" which was lurking in his conftitution, and to which we may afcribe thofe particularities, and that averfion to regular life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the College vacation of the year 1729, he felt himfelf overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and defpair, which made existence mifery. From this difmal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. How wonderful, how unfearchable are the ways of GOD! Johnson, who was bleft with all the powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature, was at the fame time vifited with a diforder fo afflictive, that they who know it by dire experience, will not envy his exalted endowments. That it was, in fome degree, occafioned by a defect in his nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. He told Mr. Paradife that he was fometimes fo languid and inefficient, that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock.

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Johnson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder, ftrove to overcome it by forcible exertions. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again, and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His expreffion concerning it to me was, "I did not then know how to manage it." His distress became fo intolerable, that he applied to Dr. Swinfen, phyfician in Lichfield, his godfather, and put into his hands a state of his cafe, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen was fo much ftruck with the extraordinary acutenefs, research, and eloquence of this paper, that in his zeal for his godfon he shewed it to several people. His daughter, Mrs. Defmoulins, who was many years humanely supported in Dr. Johnson's houfe in London, told me, that upon his discovering that Dr. Swinfen had communicated his cafe, he was fo much offended, that he was never afterwards fully reconciled to him. He indeed had good reafon to be offended; for though Dr. Swinfen's motive was good, he inconfiderately betrayed a matter deeply interesting and of great delicacy, which had been entrusted to him in confidence; and exposed a

3 Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson, by John Courtenay, Efq. M. P.

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complaint of his young friend and patient, which, in the fuperficial opinion of the generality of mankind, is attended with contempt and disgrace.

But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnfon was an HYPOCHONDRIACK, was fubject to what the learned, philofophical, and pious Dr. Cheyne has fo well treated, under the title of "The English Malady." Though he suffered feverely from it, he was not therefore degraded. The powers of his great mind might be troubled, and their full exercise fufpended at times, but the mind itself was ever entire. As a proof of this, it is only neceffary to confider, that, when he was at the very worst, he composed that ftate of his own cafe, which fhewed an uncommon vigour, not only of fancy and tafte, but of judgement. I am aware that he himself was too ready to call fuch a complaint by the name of madness; in conformity with which notion, he has traced its gradations, with exquifite nicety, in one of the chapters of his RASSELAS. But there is furely a clear diftinction between a diforder which affects only the imagination and spirits, while the judgement is found, and a diforder by which the judgement itself is impaired. This distinction was made to me by the late Profeffor Gaubius of Leyden, physician to the Prince of Orange, in a converfation which I had with him feveral years ago, and he expanded it thus: "If (faid he) a man tells me that he is grievously disturbed, for that he imagines he sees a ruffian coming against him with a drawn fword, though at the fame time he is confcious it is a delufion, I pronounce him to have a difordered imagination; but if a man tells me that he fees this, and in confternation calls to me to look at it, I pronounce him to be mad.”

It is a common effect of low fpirits or melancholy, to make thofe who are afflicted with it imagine that they are actually fuffering those evils which happen to be moft ftrongly prefented to their minds. Some have fancied themselves to be deprived of the use of their limbs, fome to labour under acute diseases, others to be in extreme poverty, when, in truth, there was not the least reality in any of the fuppofitions; fo that when the vapours were dispelled, they were convinced of the delufion. To Johnson, whofe fupreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason, the disturbance or obfcuration of that faculty was the evil most to be dreaded. Infanity, therefore, was the object of his most dismal apprehenfion; and he fancied himself seized by it, or approaching to it, at the very time when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary foundness and vigour of judgement. That his own diseased imagination should have fo far deceived him, is ftrange; but it is stranger ftill that fome of his friends fhould have given credit to his groundless

opinion,

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