"
[Page 272: Stories of old college days. A.D. 1754.]
'As we were leaving the College, he said, "Here I translated Pope's
Messiah. Which do you think is the best line in it?--My own favourite
is,
'_Vallis aromalicas fundit Saronica nubes_[799].'"
'I told him, I thought it a very sonorous hexameter. I did not tell him,
it was not in the Virgilian style[800]. He much regretted that his _first_
tutor[801] was dead; for whom he seemed to retain the greatest regard. He
said, "I once had been a whole morning sliding in Christ-Church Meadow,
and missed his lecture in logick. After dinner, he sent for me to his
room. I expected a sharp rebuke for my idleness, and went with a beating
heart. When we were seated, he told me he had sent for me to drink a
glass of wine with him, and to tell me, he was _not_ angry with me for
missing his lecture. This was, in fact, a most severe reprimand. Some
more of the boys were then sent for, and we spent a very pleasant
afternoon." Besides Mr. Meeke, there was only one other Fellow of
Pembroke now resident: from both of whom Johnson received the greatest
civilities during this visit, and they pressed him very much to have a
room in the College.
'In the course of this visit (1754,) Johnson and I walked, three or four
times, to Ellsfield, a village beautifully situated about three miles
from Oxford, to see Mr. Wise, Radclivian librarian, with whom Johnson
was much pleased.
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