[795] Pitt this year described, in the House of Commons, a visit that he had paid to Oxford the summer before. He and his friends 'were at the window of the Angel Inn; a lady was desired to sing God save great George our King. The chorus was re-echoed by a set of young lads drinking at a college over the way [Queen's], but with additions of rank treason.' Walpole's George II, i. 413.
[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 entitle 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 nobis 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:—'Mittit 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 circumstantial accuracy required for the editing critically of a Latin classic,' 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.