ment that he should have an enemy in the world[1], while he had been doing nothing but good to his neighbours, I used to make him recollect these circumstances: 'Why child (said he), what harm could that do the fellow[2]? I always thought very well of M——n for a Cambridge man; he is, I believe, a mighty blameless character.' Such tricks were, however, the more unpardonable in Mr. Johnson, because no one could harangue like him about the difficulty always found in forgiving petty injuries, or in provoking by needless offence. Mr. Jordan, his tutor, had much of his affection, though he despised his want of scholastic learning. 'That creature would (said he) defend his pupils to the last: no young lad under his care should suffer for committing slight improprieties, while he had breath to defend, or power to protect them. If I had had sons to send to college (added he), Jordan should have been their tutor[3].'
Sir William Browne the physician, who lived to a very extraordinary age, and was in other respects an odd mortal, with more genius than understanding, and more self-sufficiency than wit, was the only person who ventured to oppose Mr. Johnson, when he had a mind to shine by exalting his favourite university, and to express his contempt of the whiggish notions which prevail at Cambridge[4]. He did it once, however, with surprising felicity:
- ↑ From a sick room he wrote to Mrs. Thrale in the last year but one of his life: – 'I have in this still scene of life great comfort in reflecting that I have given very few reason to hate me.' Letters, ii. 314.
- ↑ See Life, iv. 280, where he asks, 'What harm does it do to any man to be contradicted?'
- ↑ When Johnson visited Oxford in 1754, 'he much regretted that his first tutor [Jorden] was dead, for whom he seemed to retain the greatest regard.' Ib. i. 272.
- ↑ Miss Burney records in May, 1772: – 'I have just left the famous Sir William Browne in the parlour, a most extraordinary old man, who lives in the Square [Queen Square], and is here on a visit. He has been a very renowned physician; whether for saving or killing I cannot say. He is near eighty, and enjoys prodigious health and spirits, and is gallant to the ladies to a most ridiculous degree. He never comes without repeating some of his verses.'
Caractacus and Elfrida, 'often wondered at Johnson's low estimation of his writings.' Life, ii. 335. Mason was a Cambridge man.
Johnson in his Dictionary calls fun 'a low cant [slang] word.' In Sir Charles Grandison, ed. 1754, i. 96-7, it is used by an illiterate gentleman.
