to trade in them. His business declined; his debts increased; it
was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were
defrayed. It was out of his power to support his son at either
university; but a wealthy neighbour offered assistance; and, in
reliance on promises which proved to be of very little value,
Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young
scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they
were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners
than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which
he had picked up during many months of desultory but not
unprofitable study. On the first day of his residence he
surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; and one of the most
learned among them declared that he had never known a freshman of
equal attainments.

At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. He was
poor, even to raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and
a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He
was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering
looks which the members of that aristocratical society cast at
the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person placed a new pair
at his door; but he spurned them away in a fury. Distress made
him, not servile, but reckless and ungovernable. No opulent
gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, could have
treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect.
The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of
Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle
of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty
linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendency.
In every mutiny against the discipline of the college he was the