excite pity in fome that faw and noticed him. Shall I be particular, and relate a circumftance of his distress, that cannot be imputed to him as an effect of his own extravagance or irregularity, and confequently reflects no difgrace on his memory? He had scarce any change of raiment, and, in a fhort time after Corbet left him, but one pair of fhoes, and thofe fo old, that his feet were feen through them: a gentleman of his college, the father of an eminent clergyman now living, directed a fervitor one morning to place a new pair at the door of Johnson's chamber, who, feeing them upon his first going out, fo far forgot himself and the spirit that must have actuated his unknown benefactor, that, with all the indignation of an infulted man, he threw them away.

He may be supposed to have been under the age of twenty, when this imaginary indignity was offered him, a period of life at which, fo far as concerns the knowledge of mankind, and the means of improving adverse circumstances, every one has much to learn: he had, doubtlefs, before this time, experienced the proud 'man's contumely;' and in this fchool of affliction might have first had reafon to fay,

Slow rifes worth by poverty depreft.'

his fpirit was, nevertheless, too great to fink under this depreffion. His tutor, Jordan, in about a year's space, went off to a living which he had been presented to, upon giving a bond to refign it in favour of a minor, and Johnson became the pupil of Mr. Adams, a perfon of far fuperior endowments, who afterwards attained a doctor's degree, and is at this time head of his college. Encouraged, by a change so propitious to his studies,

ftudies, he profecuted them with diligence, attended both public and private lectures, performed his exercifes with alacrity, and in fhort, neglected no means or opportunities of improvement. He had at this time a great emulation, to call it by no worfe a name, to excel his competitors in literature. There was a young gentleman of his college, named Meekes, whofe exercifes he could not bear to hear commended; and whenever he declaimed or difputed in the hall, Johnson would retire to the fartheft corner thereof, that he might be out of the reach of his voice.

In this courfe of learning, his favourite objects were claffical literature, ethics, and theology, in the latter whereof he laid the foundation by ftudying the Fathers. If we may judge from the magnitude of his Adverfaria, which I have now by me, his plan for study was a very extenfive one. The heads of fcience, to the extent of fix folio volumes, are copioufly branched throughout it; but, as is generally the cafe with young ftudents, the blank far exceed in number the written leaves.

To fay the truth, the courfe of his ftudies was far from regular he read by fits and starts, and, in the intervals, digested his reading by meditation, to which he was ever prone. Neither did he regard the hours of study, farther than the difcipline of the college compelled him. It was the practice in his time, for a fervitor, by order of the mafter, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the door, to enquire if they were within, and, if no answer was returned, to report them abfent: Johnson could not endure this intrufion, and would frequently be filent, when the utterance of a word would have infured him from cen

fure;

fure; and, farther to be revenged for being disturbed when he was as profitably employed as perhaps he could be, would join with others of the young men in the college in hunting, as they called it, the fervitor, who was thus diligent in his duty; and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, finging to the tune of Chevy-chace, the words in that old ballad,

To drive the deer with hound and horn,' &c. not seldom to the endangering the life and limbs of the unfortunate victim.

These, and other fuch levities, marked his behaviour for a short time after his coming to college; but he foon convinced thofe about him, that he came thither for other purposes than to make sport either for himfelf or them. His exercises were applauded, and his tutor was not fo fhallow a man, but that he could difcover in Johnson great skill in the claffics, and also a talent for Latin verfification, by fuch compofitions as few of his standing could equal. Mr. Jordan taking advantage, therefore, of a tranfgreffion of this his pupil, the absenting himself from early prayers, imposed on him for a vacation exercise, the task of tranflating into Latin verse the Meffiah of Mr. Pope, which being shewn to the author of the original, by a fon of Dr. Arbuthnot, then a gentleman-commoner of Chrift-church, and brother of the late Mr. Arbuthnot of the Exchequer-office, was read, and returned with this encomium: The ⚫ writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.'* This tranflation

Mr. Pope, in another instance, gave a proof of his candor and difpofition to encourage the effays of young men of genius. When Smart published his Latin tranflation of Mr. Pope's ode on St. Ceci

tranflation found its way into a mifcellany published by fubfcription at Oxford, in the year 1731, under the name of J. Hufbands.

He had but little relish for mathematical learning, and was content with fuch a degree of knowledge in phyfics, as he could not but acquire in the ordinary exercises of the place: his fortunes and circumstances had determined him to no particular courfe of ftudy, and were fuch as feemed to exclude him from every one of the learned profefiions. He, more than once, fignified to a friend who had been educated at the fame fchool with him, then at Chriftchurch, and intended for the bar, an inclination to the practice of the civil or the common law; the former of thefe required a long courfe of academical inftitution, and how to fucceed in the latter, he had not learned; but his father's inability to fupport him checked

lia's day, Mr. Pope having read it, in a letter to Newbery the publifher of it returned his thanks to the author, with an affurance, that it exceeded his own original. This fact Newbery himself told me, and offered to fhew me the letter in Mr. Pope's hand-writing.

*In the two profeffions of the civil and common law, a notable difference is difcernible: the former admits fuch only as have had the previous qualification of an univerfity education; the latter receives all whofe broken fortunes drive, or a confidence in their abilities tempts to feek a maintenance in it. Men of low extraction, domeftic fervants, and clerks to eminent lawyers, have become fpecial pleaders and advocates; and, by an unreftrained abufe of the liberty of fpeech, have acquired popularity and wealth. A remarkable inftance of this kind occurs in the account of a famous lawyer of the lait century, lord chief justice Saunders, as exhibited in the life of the lord keeper Guilford, Page 223.

He was at first no better than a poor beggar boy, if not a parish foundling, without known parents or relations. He had found

a way

checked these wishes, and left him to feek the means of a future fubfiftence. If nature could be faid to have pointed out a profeffion for him, that of the bar feems to have been it in that faculty, his acuteness and penetration, and above all, his nervous and manly elocution, could scarcely have failed to distinguish him, and to have raised him to the highest honours of that lucrative profeffion; but, whatever nature might have intended for him, fortune feems to have been the arbiter of his destiny, and by fhutting up the avenues to wealth and civil honours, to have left him to display his talents in the feveral characters of a moralift, a philofopher, and a poet.

The time of his continuance at Oxford is divifible into two periods, the former whereof commenced on the 31ft day of October, 1728, and determined in Decem→

a way to live by obfequioufnefs, (in Clement's-Inn, as I remember,) and courting the attornies clerks for fcraps. The extraordinary ⚫ obfervance and diligence of the boy, made the fociety willing to

do him good. He appeared very ambitious to lean to write; ⚫ and one of the attornies got a board knocked up at a window on the top of a ftaircase, and that was his defk, where he fat and ⚫ wrote after copies of court and other hands the clerks gave him. ⚫ He made himself fo expert a writer, that he took in business, and

earned fome pence by hackney-writing. And thus, by degrees, he pushed his faculties, and fell to forms; and, by books that < were lent him, became an exquifite entering-clerk: and, by the fame courfe of improvement of himself, an able counfel, firft in ⚫ fpecial pleading, then at large. And, after he was called to the bar, had practice in the King's Bench court equal with any

⚫ there.'

He fucceeded Pemberton in the office of chief justice of the king's bench, and died of an apoplexy and palfy a fhort time before the revolution. A curious delineation of his perfon and character may be feen in the volume above cited.