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.
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