death!'

Johnson this year found an interval of leisure to make an excursion to
Oxford, for the purpose of consulting the libraries there.

Of his conversation while at Oxford at this time, Mr. Warton preserved
and communicated to me the following memorial, which, though not written
with all the care and attention which that learned and elegant writer
bestowed on those compositions which he intended for the publick eye,
is so happily expressed in an easy style, that I should injure it by any
alteration:

'When Johnson came to Oxford in 1754, the long vacation was beginning,
and most people were leaving the place. This was the first time of his
being there, after quitting the University. The next morning after his
arrival, he wished to see his old College, Pembroke. I went with him.
He was highly pleased to find all the College-servants which he had left
there still remaining, particularly a very old butler; and expressed
great satisfaction at being recognised by them, and conversed with them
familiarly. He waited on the master, Dr. Radcliffe, who received him
very coldly. Johnson at least expected, that the master would order a
copy of his Dictionary, now near publication: but the master did not
choose to talk on the subject, never asked Johnson to dine, nor even to
visit him, while he stayed at Oxford. After we had left the lodgings,
Johnson said to me, "THERE lives a man, who lives by the revenues of
literature, and will not move a finger to support it. If I come to live
at Oxford, I shall take up my abode at Trinity." We then called on the
Reverend Mr. Meeke, one of the fellows, and of Johnson's standing. Here
was a most cordial greeting on both sides. On leaving him, Johnson said,
"I used to think Meeke had excellent parts, when we were boys together
at the College: but, alas!

'Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!'

I remember, at the classical lecture in the Hall, I could not bear
Meeke's superiority, and I tried to sit as far from him as I could, that
I might not hear him construe."

'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 aromaticas fundit Saronica nubes.'"

I told him, I thought it a very sonorous hexameter. I did not tell him,
it was not in the Virgilian style. He much regretted that his FIRST
tutor was dead; for whom he seemed to retain the greatest regard. He
said, "I once had been