page_title: Early life of Samuel Johnson
section_title: College
hierarchical_section_title: Early life of Samuel Johnson / Childhood / College
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance to Pembroke College, Pembroke Square, Oxford, seen from the north
context_page_description: Samuel Johnson was an English author born in Lichfield, Staffordshire. He was a sickly infant who early on began to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his later years. From childhood he displayed great intelligence and an eagerness for learning, but his early years were dominated by his family's financial strain and his efforts to establish himself as a school teacher.
  After a year spent studying at Pembroke College, Oxford, Johnson was forced to leave by lack of financial support. He tried to find employment as a teacher, but was unable to secure a long-term position. In 1735 he married Elizabeth "Tetty" Porter, a widow 20 years older than himself, and the responsibilities of this marriage made him determined to succeed as an educator. He established his own school, but the venture was unsuccessful. Thereafter, leaving his wife behind in Lichfield, he moved to London, where he spent the rest of his life. In London he began writing essays for The Gentleman's Magazine, and also befriended Richard Savage, a notorious rake and aspiring poet who claimed to be the disavowed son of a nobleman.
context_section_description: On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned 19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford as a fellow-commoner. The inheritance did not cover all of his expenses at Pembroke, but Andrew Corbet, a friend and student at Pembroke, offered to make up the deficit. Corbet left Pembroke soon after Johnson arrived, so this source of aid disappeared. To meet the expenses, Michael Johnson allowed his son to borrow a hundred books from his bookshop, at a great cost to himself, and these books were not fully returned to Michael until many years later.
  On the day of Johnson's entrance interview for Pembroke, his anxious father introduced him to his future tutor, William Jorden, hoping to make an impression. During the interview, his father was "very full of the merits of his son, and told the company he was a good scholar, and a poet, and wrote Latin verses", which caused Johnson significant embarrassment. Michael's praise was unnecessary; Johnson's interview went so well that one of the interviewers, a 26-year-old William Adams (Jorden's cousin, later Master of Pembroke), claimed that Johnson was "the best qualified for the University that he had ever known come there". Throughout the interview, Johnson sat quietly while listening to his father and the interviewers, until he interrupted and quoted Macrobius. The interviewers were surprised that "a School-boy should know Macrobius", and he was accepted immediately.
  At Pembroke, Johnson made many friends, but neglected many of the mandatory lectures, and ignored calls for poems. He did complete one poem, the first of his tutorial exercises, on which he spent comparable time, and which provoked surprise and applause. He was later asked by his tutor to produce a Latin translation of Alexander Pope's Messiah as a Christmas exercise. Johnson completed half of the translation in one afternoon and the rest the following morning. Although the poem brought him praise, it did not bring the material benefit he had hoped for. The poem was brought to Pope's attention; according to Sir John Hawkins, Pope claimed that he could not tell if it was the original or not. However, Johnson's friend John Taylor dismissed this "praise" because Johnson's father had already published the translation before Johnson sent a copy to Pope, and Pope could have been remarking about it being a duplication of the published edition.
  Regardless, Pope remarked that the work was very finely done, but that did not prevent Johnson from being violently angry at his father's actions in preempting his sending Pope a copy of the poem. The poem later appeared in Miscellany of Poems (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and is the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson's writings. Johnson spent the rest of his time studying, even over the Christmas vacation. He drafted a "plan of study" called "Adversaria", which was left unfinished, and used his time to learn French while working on his knowledge of Greek.
  Although he later praised Jorden, Johnson came to odds with him over what he considered to be Jorden's "meanness" of abilities. He discouraged his friend Taylor, who came to Pembroke in March, from having Jorden as his tutor, and Taylor was soon encouraged to go to Christ Church to be taught by Edmund Bateman. Johnson appreciated Bateman's skill as a lecturer, and he would often travel to meet Taylor to discuss the lectures. However, Johnson lacked the funds to even replace his shoes, and so he started to make the journey barefoot. In response, those of Christ Church began to mock Johnson, and he soon kept to his own room for the rest of his time at Pembroke, with Taylor visiting him instead.
  After thirteen months, poverty forced Johnson to leave Oxford without taking a degree, and he returned to Lichfield. During his last weeks at Oxford, Jorden left Pembroke, and Johnson was given William Adams as a tutor in his place. He enjoyed Adams as a tutor, but by December, Johnson was already a quarter behind in his student fees, and he was forced to return home. He left behind many of the books that his fat
caption: Entrance of Pembroke College, Oxford
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