"--About this time there had
been an execution of two or three criminals at Oxford on a Monday.
Soon afterwards, one day at dinner, I was saying that Mr. Swinton
the chaplain of the gaol, and also a frequent preacher before the
University, a learned man, but often thoughtless and absent, preached
the condemnation-sermon on repentance, before the convicts, on the
preceding day, Sunday; and that in the close he told his audience, that
he should give them the remainder of what he had to say on the subject,
the next Lord's Day. Upon which, one of our company, a Doctor of
Divinity, and a plain matter-of-fact man, by way of offering an apology
for Mr. Swinton, gravely remarked, that he had probably preached the
same sermon before the University: "Yes, Sir, (says Johnson) but the
University were not to be hanged the next morning."
'I forgot to observe before, that when he left Mr. Meeke, (as I have
told above) he added, "About the same time of life, Meeke was left
behind at Oxford to feed on a Fellowship, and I went to London to get my
living: now, Sir, see the difference of our literary characters!"'
The degree of Master of Arts, which, it has been observed, could not be
obtained for him at an early period of his life, was now considered as
an honour of considerable importance, in order to grace the title-page
of his Dictionary; and his character in the literary world being by this
time deservedly high, his friends thought that, if proper exertions were
made, the University of Oxford would pay him the compliment.
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