He had no settled plan of life,nor looked forward at all,but merely lived from day to day.Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner,without any scheme of study,as chance threw books in his way,and inclination directed him through them.He used to mention one curious instance of his casual reading,when but a boy.Having imagined that his brother had hid some apples behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop,he climbed up to search for them.There were no apples;but the large folio proved to be Petrarch,whom he had seen mentioned in some preface,as one of the restorers of learning.His curiosity having been thus excited,he sat down with avidity,and read a great part of the book.What he read during these two years he told me,was not works of mere amusement,'not voyages and travels,but all literature,Sir,all ancient writers,all manly:though but little Greek,only some of Anacreon and Hesiod;but in this irregular manner (added he)I had looked into a great many books,which were not commonly known at the Universities,where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors;so that when I came to Oxford,Dr.Adams,now master of Pembroke College,told me I was the best qualified for the University that he had ever known come there.'
That a man in Mr.Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of sending his son to the expensive University of Oxford,at his own charge,seems very improbable.The subject was too delicate to question Johnson upon.But 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.
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 presided over Pembroke College with universal esteem,told me he was present,and gave me some account of what passed 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 father 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 sat silent,till upon something which occurred in the course of 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.
His tutor,Mr.Jorden,fellow of Pembroke,was not,it seems,a man of such abilities as we should conceive requisite for the instructor 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 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 had a love and respect for Jorden,not for his literature,but for his worth.'Whenever (said he)a young man becomes Jorden's pupil,he becomes his son.'
Having given 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.
It is said,that Mr.Pope expressed himself 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 son,who was very angry when he heard of it.
The 'morbid melancholy,'which was lurking in his constitution,and to which we may ascribe those particularities,and that aversion 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 himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria,with perpetual irritation,fretfulness,and impatience;and with a dejection,gloom,and despair,which made existence misery.From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved;and all his labours,and all his enjoyments,were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence.He told Mr.Paradise that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient,that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock.
Johnson,upon the first violent attack of this disorder,strove to overcome it by forcible exertions.He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again,and tried many other expedients,but all in vain.His expression concerning it to me was 'I did not then know how to manage it.'His distress became so intolerable,that he applied to Dr.Swinfen,physician in Lichfield,his god-father,and put into his hands a state of his case,written in Latin.Dr.
Swinfen was so much struck with the extraordinary acuteness,research,and eloquence of this paper,that in his zeal for his godson he shewed it to several people.His daughter,Mrs.
Desmoulins,who was many years humanely supported in Dr.Johnson's house in London,told me,that upon his discovering that Dr.