plan for study was a very extensive one. The heads of science, to the extent of six folio volumes, are copiously branched throughout it ; but, as is generally the case with young students, the blank far exceed in number the written leaves.
To say the truth, the course of his studies was far from regular : he read by fits and starts, and, in the intervals, digested his reading by meditation, to which he was ever prone. Neither did he regard the hours of study, farther than the discipline of the college compelled him. It was the practice in his time, for a servitor, by order of the Master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the -door, to enquire if they were within, and, if no answer was returned, to report them ,/ absent 1 . Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and would frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have insured him from censure ; and, farther to be revenged for being disturbed when he was profitably employed as perhaps he could be, would join with others of the young men in the college 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 candle sticks, singing to the tune of Chevy-chace, the words in that old ballad,
- To drive the deer with hound and horn, 3 &c.,
not seldom to the endangering the life and limbs of the unfor tunate victim. (Page 1 2.)
It was wonderful to see, when he took up a book, with what eagerness he perused, and with what haste his eye travelled over it : he has been known to read a volume, and that not a small one, at a sitting ; nor was he inferior in the power of memory to him with whom he is compared [Magliabechi] ; whatever he read, became his own for ever, with all the ad vantages that a penetrating judgment and deep reflection could add to it. I have heard him repeat, with scarce a mistake of
1 Whitefield, who entered the see who were in their rooms, I
College soon after Johnson left, re- thought the devil would appear to
cords : ' It being my duty, as ser- me every stair I went up.' Tyerman's
vitor, in my turn to knock at the Whitefield^ i. 20. gentlemen's rooms by ten at night, to
a word
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