ntly; for
the truth is, that he was then depressed by poverty, and irritated by
disease. When I mentioned to him this account as given me by Dr. Adams,
he said; 'Ah, Sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they
mistook for frolick. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my
way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all
authority.'

The Bishop of Dromore observes in a letter to me,

'The pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often
mentioned. But I have heard him say, what ought to be recorded to the
honour of the present venerable master of that College, the Reverend
William Adams, D.D., who was then very young, and one of the junior
fellows; that the mild but judicious expostulations of this worthy man,
whose virtue awed him, and whose learning he revered, made him really
ashamed of himself, "though I fear (said he) I was too proud to own it."

'I have heard from some of his cotemporaries that he was generally seen
lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young students round him,
whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies, if
not spiriting them up to rebellion against the College discipline, which
in his maturer years he so much extolled.'

I do not find that he formed any close intimacies with his
fellow-collegians. But Dr. Adams told me that he contracted a love and
regard for Pembroke College, which he retained to the last. A short time
before his death he sent to that College a present of all his works, to
be deposited in their library; and he had thoughts of leaving to it his
house at Lichfield; but his friends who were about him very properly
dissuaded him from it, and he bequeathed it to some poor relations.
He took a pleasure in boasting of the many eminent men who had been
educated at Pembroke. In this list are found the names of Mr. Hawkins
the Poetry Professor, Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackstone, and others;
not forgetting the celebrated popular preacher, Mr. George Whitefield,
of whom, though Dr. Johnson did not think very highly, it must be
acknowledged that his eloquence was powerful, his views pious and
charitable, his assiduity almost incredible; and, that since his death,
the integrity of his character has been fully vindicated. Being himself
a poet, Johnson was peculiarly happy in mentioning how many of the sons
of Pembroke were poets; adding, with a smile of sportive triumph, 'Sir,
we are a nest of singing