Johnson was a poor
scholar, and on him duties were imposed. He was requested to write
an ode on the Gunpowder Plot, and Boswell thinks "his vivacity and
imagination must have produced something fine." He neglected,
however, with his usual indolence, this opportunity of producing
something fine. Another exercise imposed on the poor was the
translation of Mr. Pope's "Messiah," in which the young Pembroke man
succeeded so well that, by Mr. Pope's own generous confession, future
ages would doubt whether the English or the Latin piece was the
original. Johnson complained that no man could be properly inspired
by the Pembroke "coll," or college beer, which was then commonly
drunk by undergraduates, still guiltless of Rhine wines, and of
collecting Chinese monsters.
Carmina vis nostri scribant meliora poetae
Ingenium jubeas purior baustus alat.
In spite of the muddy beer, the poverty, and the "bitterness mistaken
for frolic," with which Johnson entertained the other undergraduates
round Pembroke gate, he never ceased to respect his college. "His
love and regard for Pembroke he entertained to the last," while of
his old tutor he said, "a man who becomes Jorden's pupil becomes his
son." Gibbon's sneer is a foil to Johnson's kindliness. "I applaud
the filial piety which it is impossible for me to imitate . . . To
the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligations, and she will
as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her
for a mother.
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