t
Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to
the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly
figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and
curious information which he had picked up during many months of
desultory, but not unprofitable study. On the first day of his
residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; and one of
the most learned among them declared, that he had never known a
freshman of equal attainments.

At Oxford Johnson resided during about three years. He was poor, even
to raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which
were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the
quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members of
that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some
charitable person placed a new pair at his door; but he spurned them
away in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless and
ungovernable. No opulent gentleman commoner panting for one-and-twenty
could have treated the academical authorities with more gross
disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate
of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle
of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his
wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendancy. In every mutiny
against the discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was
pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities and
acquirements. He had early made himself known by turning Pope's
"Messiah" into Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not
exactly Virgilian; but the translation found many admirers, and was
read with pleasure by Pope himself.

The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course of
things, have become a Bachelor of Arts; but he was at the end of his
resources. Those promises of support on which he had relied had not
been kept. His family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford
tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the
autumn of 1731 he was under the necessity of quitting the university
without a degree. In the following winter his father died. The old man
left but a pittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was
appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to which Samuel
succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds.

His life, during the thirt