��Extracts from
��at the door of Johnson's chamber, who, seeing them upon his first going out, so far forgot himself and the spirit that must have actuated his unknown benefactor, that, with all the in dignation of an insulted man, he threw them away 1 . (Page 10.)
In this course of learning, his favourite objects were classical literature, ethics, and theology, in the latter whereof he laid the foundation by studying the Fathers 2 . If we may judge from the magnitude of his Adversaria, which I have now by me 3 , his
��1 Life, \. 77.
Johnson's difficulties no doubt were increased by the general dearness during his residence at College. The year in which he entered, 1728, wheat stood higher than it did in a period of more than fifty years. 1729 also was a dear year. Wealth of Nations, ed. 1811, i. 359. See ante, i. 129, n. i.
2 * He told me what he read solidly at Oxford was Greek ; . . . that the study of which he was the most fond was Metaphysicks, but he had not read much even in that way.' Life, 1.70.
Boswell recorded in his note book :' Ashbourne, 20 Sept. 1777. Dr. Johnson told me that he had been always idle. That his most determinate application had been within these ten years in reading Greek. That the reading which he had loved most was metaphysicks ; but that he had not read much even in that way. That he very early loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end. That he read in Shakespeare at a very early time of life, so early that he remem bers being afraid to read the speech of the Ghost in Hamlet when alone. That Horace's Odes have been the composition in which he has taken most delight.' Morrison Autographs, 2nd Series, i. 372. For his Greek see ante, i. 183.
��3 See Life, i. 205, and /AT/, p. 129, where Hawkins was detected in pocketing two volumes in Johnson's handwriting. Some volumes he either secreted, or Johnson neglected to destroy, when he burnt his private papers ; for Hawkins not only had these Adversaria, but other volumes of a much more private nature, which he thus describes: 'To enable him at times to review his progress in life, and to estimate his improvement in religion, he, in the year 1734, be gan to note down the transactions of each day, recollecting, as well as he was able, those of his youth, and interspersing such reflections and resolutions as, under particular cir cumstances, he was induced to make. This register, which he intitled "Annales," does not form an entire volume, but is contained in a variety of little books folded and stitched together by himself, and which were found mixed with his papers. Some specimens of these notanda have been lately printed with his prayers.'
' It was my business (writes Miss Hawkins, Memoirs, i. 188) to select from his little books of self-examina tion, which came into my father's hands, the passages that should be printed as specimens ; and I rejected, as subject to wild surmises, those which contained marks known only in their significations by himself.' See also Life, iv. 406, n. i.
plan
�� �
