This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
68
His first tutor.
[A.D. 1728.

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[1]. 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 says of Robert Burton, authour of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' when elected student of Christ Church: 'for form's sake, though he wanted not a tutor, he was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxon[2].'

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[3]. The first day

    was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his Life of Ascham he says, 'Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534. in the eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common now to enter the universities than to take degrees. 'Johnson's Works, vi. 505. It was just after Johnson's entrance that the two Wesleys began to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford.

  1. Builders were at work in the college during all his residence. 'July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.' Hearne's Remains, iii. 9.
  2. Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627. Boswell.
  3. 'Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend his lectures . . . Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to Jorden:—"Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-
after