In 1728 . . . Dr. Johnson, whose name is the greatest connected with Pembroke, entered the college as a commoner, at the age of nineteen, remaining there only fourteen months. His room was a very small one in the second storey over the gate way, and may still be seen practically the same as it was when he occupied it.”When he was first entered at the university he passed a morning, in compliance with the customs of the place, at his tutor's chamber; but finding him no scholar went no more. In about ten days after, meet ing Mr Jordan in the street, he offered to pass without saluting him; but the tutor stopped and inquired, not roughly neither, what he had been doing. Sliding on the ice,' was the reply; and so turned away with disdain.” Being fined for absence from a lecture, he remarked: ”Sir, you have scored me twopence for a lecture not worth a penny.” But Jordan's kindness melted his heart and he afterwards declared: ”That creature would defend his pupils to the last; no young lad under his care should suffer for committing slight irregularities, while he had breath to defend or power to protect them. If I had sons to send to college Jordan should have been their tutor.”
Johnson ”was generally to be seen lounging at the college gate with a circle of young students round him, whom he was entertaining with wit and keeping from their studies, if not spirit ing them up to rebellion against the college discipline, which in his maturer years he so much extolled. "He is reported to have been very popular, and appeared very gay, but when Boswell mentioned this to him he said: ”Ah, sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority.”
”It was the practice for a servitor, by order of the master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the door, to inquire if they were within, and if no answer was returned, to report them absent. Johnson could not endure this intrusion and would frequently be silent when the utterance of a word would have ensured him from censure, and... would join with others of the young men in hunting, as they called it, the servitor who was thus diligent in his duty, and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, singing to the tune of ' Chevy Chase, ' the words of that old ballad.” He always retained a great affection for Pembroke, and went there first whenever he visited Oxford. It was only a few months before his death that he went there for the last time, and ”he took a pleasure in boasting of the many eminent men who had been educated at Pembroke.” He presented all his works to the college library, and there may also be seen a bust of him, the MSS. of his ”Prayers and Meditations,” his college essays and letters and the desk on which he wrote the Dictionary. In the com mon room are Sir Joshua Reynolds ' portrait of him and his china teapot which holds two quarts. He was ”a hardened and shameless tea drinker,” and is reported on one occasion to have drunk as many as twenty - five cups.
Bibliography
Lang, Elsie M. The Oxford Colleges. London: T. Werner. HathiTrust online version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 3 December 2022.
Last modified
Last modified 3 December 2022