22
PEMBROKE RECORD
Yet all was not well. The small inheritance which his mother had received from her aunt was not sufficient to support him. His shoes were worn through, though he spurned the gift of a new pair. Moreover he was increasingly at odds with the college. Many of the classes were conducted by tutors who were his junior and no doubt his characteristic combativeness led to trouble. The battel books are cryptic enough, but one item is easily identified, and that is the incidence of fines, `mulctis'. Johnson did not incur many in his first year, but the last quarter of his time shows a remarkable increase. Matters came to a head on Friday, 5 December 1729 when as his friend John Taylor reported: "Johnson being miserably poor set out for Lichfield very early in a morning having hid his toes in a pair of large boots. Taylor went with him as far as Banbury and returned at night." Matters were not much easier at home. His father's bookshop was struggling, and Michael Johnson could not easily manage his elder son. Johnson at some time refused to assist his father with the stall in Uttoxeter market. As an old man he sought to expiate his disobedwace by standing bareheaded in the rain in the same market place where his father's stall used to stand. Michael died in 1731 and his widow kept the shop going. The college has a small bundle of bills and receipts from the shop at that time, showing something of the kind of reading which attracted the clergy in a small cathedral town. Johnson's activities at this time are not clearly known, but an entry in the library borrowing register, which began in 1730, reads as follows: `June 15, 1734. Borrow'd of Mr. Meek, Librarian, Angeli Politiani Opera, by ye Revd. Mr. Robt. Boyse, for / use of Mr Johnson. Witness. J. Ratcliff. A. Blackford.' Johnson apparently intended to publish an edition of Politian's poems, but the project came to nothing. The fate of the book from the library is unknown. Sir John Hawkins, Johnson's official biographer, wrote in 1787: Among the books in his library, at the time of his disease, I found a very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to belong to Pembroke college, Oxford. If Sir John returned it, it has since disappeared. In later life Johnson was inclined to rhapsodise over Pembroke and Oxford. Mrs Thrale tells the story of his lauding Oxford at a party in