6 JOHNSON. 



time for two years and upwards, reading, in a desultory' 

 manner, whatever books came in his way ; a habit which 

 clung to him through life, insomuch that fond as he was 

 of poetry, he confessed that he never had read any one 

 poem to an end. The result, however, of the time thus 

 spent, and of his very retentive memory, was his ac- 

 quiring a variety of knowledge exceedingly rare in very 

 young men, and becoming acquainted with many writers 

 whose works are little read by any one. 



In 1728, being in his nineteenth year, he was sent to 

 Oxford, and entered of Pembroke College. His father's 

 circumstances were so narrow that this step never could 

 have been taken without the prospect of some assist- 

 ance from his friends ; and as few men who raise them- 

 selves from humble beginnings are found very anxious 

 to claim the praise which all are so ready to bestow, so 

 we find among the biographers of Johnson, a reluctance 

 of the same kind, with respect to their hero, and a dis- 

 position to involve in obscurity, the contribution which 

 must have been made to his college education. Mr. 

 Corbet, a gentleman of Shropshire, is supposed by Sir 

 John Hawkins to have supported him for the first year 

 as his son's teacher ; though this is denied by Mr. Bos- 

 well, who yet admits his father's inability to maintain 

 him at Oxford. Some gentlemen of the cathedral at 

 Lichfield afterwards contributed to his support. But 

 that he suffered much from poverty during the time 

 of his residence is certain ; and his inability to attend 

 some course of instruction -which he greatly wished to 

 follow, from the want of fit shoes, is a fact related by 

 those who remarked his feet appearing through those he 

 wore, and who also have recorded his proud refusal 



