JOHNSON. 41 



whom their honours should be bestowed. Johnson, 

 having been prevented from taking a degree in the 

 ordinary course, as we have seen, although he had resided 

 three years at Oxford, could not obtain one when it 

 would have given him the mastership of an endowed 

 school ; and he had attained for many years a high place 

 in the literary world before his Alma (?) Mater would 

 enrol him among her Masters of Arts. He obtained that 

 honorary degree on the eve of publishing his Dictionary 

 in 1755. No further honours were bestowed until in 

 1775, when a Doctor's degree was conferred upon him, 

 Trinity College, Dublin, having given him the same, ten 

 years before. He seems to have been much more pleased 

 with these compliments, than chagrined at the tardy 

 sense thus shown of his merits ; for it must be admitted 

 that Oxford delaying this mark of respect to one of her 

 most eminent pupils so long after the Irish University, 

 with which he had no connexion, had bestowed it, 

 betokened a singular economy in the distribution of 

 honours which are constantly given to every person of 

 rank without any merit whatever, who happens to attend 

 any of the great academical solemnities. Probably he 

 might feel this, for it is observable that he never availed 

 himself of the title thus bestowed upon him. He 

 always called himself Mr. Johnson, as he had done before. 

 He always wrote his name thus on his cards and in his 

 notes, never calling himself Doctor. As for his books, of 

 the three which he published after 1765, the ' Shakspeare' 

 and the ' Tour/ have no name at all in the title-pages, 

 and the ' Lives' have only Samuel Johnson, without either 

 M.A. or LL.D. 



In commemorating the treatment, whether of respect 



