Rowlandson's Oxford

by A. Hamilton Gibbs

Of a melancholic and somewhat bitter disposition already, he was, if possible, even more lonely and unsought than the average freshman. This condition of things caused him no regret. All his friends he brought with him to line the bookshelves, and, sporting his oak against an unrealising and unappreciative world, he revelled in the poets and the classics with uninterrupted bliss. But the vitality of youth does not long remain daunted, and Johnson soon threw off his melancholia and sallied forth into the cobbled streets in search of amusement or adventure. Through the bare-armed trees of the Broad Walk he made his way and joined in the sliding in the frozen Christ Church meadows. Work was forgotten in the biting, frosty, invigorating air, and for four days his tutor saw him not. Ice does not come every year, and Johnson made the most of it while it lasted.

The college exercises were child’s play to him. Unlike the majority of Undergraduates of the time, who read nothing but what was put into their hands by their tutor, Johnson brought with him to the university such a wide acquaintance with books, both of classics and poetry, that the Master of Pembroke said in all sincerity that he was better qualified for the university than any man during his time. With such knowledge and with the impetuousness that was always one of his chief characteristics, it is not to be wondered at that Johnson dashed off his exercises at top speed, and with a brilliance that created awe in the minds of the Dons. In one case, for instance, being requested to translate Pope’s Messiah into Latin verse, Johnson retired to his chamber and there, behind closed doors, wrote feverishly on a corner of his book-strewn table. The results of his rapid labours were twofold. He established a great reputation not only in his college but in the entire university, and, more than that, earned Pope’s highest praise, and brought about his statement that in later days it would be a question whether his own or Johnson’s version would be considered the original. One of his favourite haunts was Pembroke gate. There he lounged away his mornings, doing no work, attending no lectures, and preventing a crowd of listening Undergraduates from doing work or attending lectures. Like a king surrounded by his court, Johnson, unkempt of hair and ragged of clothes, with shoes down at heel and fit only for the rubbish heap, let fly his wit and satire upon every topic. The shouts of laughter which he provoked from his compeers bound them to him as though he had been a Pied Piper, and it was to empty benches that the Dons delivered their empty discourses. Against the tutors and Fellows also he turned his tongue, and his satire and humour at their expense allied the Undergraduates still more closely to him. But these merry meetings in the Pembroke gateway were only a pose on Johnson’s part. He wished to convey a certain impression, and he succeeded. The Master of Pembroke told Boswell that he “was caressed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicksome fellow, and passed there the happiest part of his life.”

This was indeed a proof of the success of his pose; for in reality he was neither gay nor happy. His poverty, the bareness of his rooms, the shabbiness of his dress, the consequent inability to go anywhere, even into Christ Church, or do any of the things that the other men did who had money, ground into his soul. He was bitterly sensitive of these things, and the least reference to them, however delicate or well-meaning, either aroused a torrent of hot words, or caused him to retreat clam-like into his shell. The man who in a spirit of discreet friendship crept up to his rooms, left a new pair of shoes outside his door and stole unseen away, was only rewarded for his good-nature by learning that Johnson had thrown them out of the window in a burst of fury against the creation that had left him penniless. It was only the fact that scornful eyes (or at any rate Johnson’s touchiness interpreted scorn into them) were turned upon his shoes, through which his feet peered frankly out, that Johnson ceased going to Christ Church to obtain, second hand, the lectures of Bateman from his friend Taylor. He conceived poverty to be an awful and dangerous state. After his father had died, leaving practically nothing for his mother and himself, Johnson wrote in one of his little diaries: “Meanwhile let me take care that the powers of my mind may not be debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into criminal act.” By force of having no money, and not receiving any remittances from his father, by whom every penny had to be made to go the distance of two, he naturally incurred debts at Oxford. As he knew, however, that it would be only with difficulty that his expenses would be met at all, his debts were not large, and any incipient extravagance that may have been in him was crushed out very early. His one great craving was to replenish his library, and as this was impossible he took every opportunity of visiting the well-stocked libraries of other people. These gave him intense joy, and his first move was always to cross to the bookshelves and there, oblivious of his host and the whole world, to pour over the beloved volumes.

His faculty for poetical and prose writings was already strongly developed when first he came up to Oxford, and the original points of view from which he wrote his themes were a subject of great comment. The rest of the Undergraduates were as children when compared to one of his mental abilities. Even his tutor admitted that his position was farcical, and that Johnson was far above him in brain capacity, for he said on one occasion that “I was his nominal tutor but he was above my mark.” And the lad was then but some nineteen years of age! Merely to perform college exercises was absurd and irritating to one of his hasty dispositions. Having rattled them off, he used to read by himself, but with such a varied and impetuous taste that his knowledge seemed to include every subject of which anything had ever been written. Boswell says that “he told me, that from his earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end; that he read Shakespeare at a period so early, that the speech of the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone; that Horace’s Odes were the composition in which he took most delight, and it was not long before he liked his Epistles and Satires.... What he read most solidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer and Euripides, and now and then a little epigram; that the study of which he was most fond was Metaphysicks.” But for all his brilliance Johnson went down without taking a degree. His father’s death rendered it impossible for him to remain at Oxford for the full course, and he never went in for the schools.

While at the university he did not form many great friendships. His was not the temperament. A highly sensitive man, surrounded for the most part by men of some wealth who were ever ready to incur expenses, he was always on the look-out for an objectionable glance of pity or sympathy, than which there was to him nothing worse or more heinous. With his wonderful talents it was rather for him to look down upon the vacuous moneyed men than permit himself to be patronised by them. Consequently, fully realising the almost insurmountable handicap of comparative penury, Johnson preferred to make his way by force of brain power or not at all, rather than bow down to the man with a fat purse. As he himself said in after life, “I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all authority.”

As a man of readiness and physical pluck he was without rival. In the summer the thought of sunshine and the wonderful green colourings of the trees called him from his books, and collecting a companion on the way, he was used to saunter through the parks to enjoy a bathe. His pulses tingling with the delight of being alive and young on a glorious day, with the softly waving branches rustling overhead, and the quiet river gliding at his feet, Johnson’s flow of fancies kept his companion entranced until they had thrown off their clothes and were ready for the first cool splash. There existed apparently a certain deep hole in the river bed in one of the places where they used to bathe, and Johnson’s friend warned him of the danger. Immediately, with the uncaring folly of youth, Johnson plunged into the very spot to his friend’s horror and anxiety. In a few moments he emerged, blowing like a healthy grampus, and poured ridicule upon his well-meaning if timid friend. He was, indeed, foolhardy to the point of braggadocio. A very sure proof of this is afforded by an incident which occurred when he was staying at Mr Beauclerk’s house in the country. The guests were outside the house one day on the lawn discussing the merits of their guns, when one of them pointed out that if a gun were loaded with many balls there was a danger of its bursting. Johnson promptly slipped in some seven or eight and fired his gun against the wall of the house. Instead of rating him soundly for his egregiously childish love of showing off, Boswell, in his blind idolatry, praises this up as being “resolution.”

At Oxford, and in fact afterwards, it was Johnson’s habit to sally forth at night time for solitary walks. His great affection for Oxford was doubtless stimulated by these lonely prowls through the moonlit streets, and his entire disregard for the consequences of his actions helped him in his climbs back into college. One can picture him dropping out of Pembroke after careful glances to right and left to see that all was clear, and marching along with his hands behind his back, safe from the scornful eyes of Smarts, which made his mean clothes infinitely more uncomfortable, his eyes drinking in the beauties of the wonderful skyline of the City of Spires, his mind occupied perhaps in thinking out Rasselas as he made his way through the narrow, deserted streets. On one of these expeditions four roughs sprang out upon him suddenly from the shadow of a gateway, intent on relieving him of the purse and jewellery which they supposed him to have. Their mistake was twofold, for, in addition to lighting upon a poor man, they had also caught a tartar. Johnson, young and active, struck out lustily and with skill, and, setting his back to the wall, battered the scoundrels right royally. Savage at being resisted, the men renewed their attack with the idea of vengeance, but Johnson, with no other aid than his fists, kept them at bay until the quick tramp of feet hurrying round the corner announced the presence of the watch, and both the attackers and their would-be victim were carried off to the round-house.

At a later period in his career when, one would have thought, his quick temper should have been entirely under control, he had an amusing adventure in the playhouse at Lichfield which showed, plainly enough, both that he could still lose his temper and that he had sufficient strength to carry things through. A chair had been placed for Johnson’s express use between the side scenes. Wishing, however, to speak with some one in another part of the building, he left it for a moment. Some gentleman promptly took possession, and Johnson, finding on his return that his place was occupied, civilly demanded his seat. The gentleman rudely refused to give it up. In a flash Johnson laid hold of him and tossed both man and chair into the pit.

In spite of the fact that Johnson at Pembroke suffered tortures from being poor, and that his gay and frolicsome habits were merely a cloak to hide his bitterness, yet he contracted a love for his college which endured to his death. It was a matter of pride to him to run over the list of names of the celebrated men educated at the same college: such names as Spenser, Shenstone, Blackstone, and others. In the “Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Hannah Moore” is found the following passage illustrative of his love for the old college. “Who do you think is my present cicerone at Oxford? Only Dr Johnson! and we do so gallant it about! You cannot imagine with what delight he showed me every part of his own college.... Dr Adams, the Master of Pembroke, had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry. We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner Johnson begged to conduct me to see the college, he would let no one else show it me but himself. ‘This was my room; this Shenstone’s.’ Then after pointing out all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, ‘In short,’ said he, ‘we were a nest of singing birds. Here we walked, there played cricket.’ He ran over with pleasure the history of the juvenile days he passed there.... But alas! Johnson looks very ill indeed—spiritless and wan. However he made an effort to be cheerful....”

As a last token of his love for Pembroke he sent the college a present of all his works. This was done just before his death, and Boswell tells us that he was most anxious to bequeath his house at Lichfield to the college as well. His friends, however, “very properly dissuaded him from it.”