He bore the journey very well, and seemed to feel himself elevated as he approached Oxford, that magnificent and venerable seat of learning, Orthodoxy, and Toryism.  Frank came in the heavy coach, in readiness to attend him; and we were received with the most polite hospitality at the house of his old friend Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, who had given us a kind invitation.  Before we were set down, I communicated to Johnson, my having engaged to return to London directly, for the reason I have mentioned, but that I would hasten back to him again.  He was pleased that I had made this journey merely to keep him company.  He was easy and placid, with Dr. Adams, Mrs. and Miss Adams, and Mrs. Kennicot, widow of the learned Hebraean[879], who was here on a visit.  He soon dispatched the inquiries which were made about his illness and recovery, by a short and distinct narrative; and then assuming a gay air, repeated from Swift,—­

     ’Nor think on our approaching ills,
      And talk of spectacles and pills[880].’

Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, Johnson, recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by that Prelate[881], thus retaliated:-’ Tom knew he should be dead before what he has said of me would appear.  He durst not have printed it while he was alive.’  DR. ADAMS.  ’I believe his Dissertations on the Prophecies is his great work.’  JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, it is Tom’s great work; but how far it is great, or how much of it is Tom’s, are other questions.  I fancy a considerable part of it was borrowed.’  DR. ADAMS.  ’He was a very successful man.’  JOHNSON.  ’I don’t think so, Sir.  He did not get very high.  He was late in getting what he did get; and he did not get it by the best means.  I believe he was a gross flatterer[882].’

I fulfilled my intention by going to London, and returned to Oxford on Wednesday the 9th of June, when I was happy to find myself again in the same agreeable circle at Pembroke College, with the comfortable prospect of making some stay.  Johnson welcomed my return with more than ordinary glee.

He talked with great regard of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, whose character he had given at the Duke of Argyll’s table, when we were at Inverary[883]; and at this time wrote out for me, in his own hand, a fuller account of that learned and venerable writer, which I have published in its proper place.  Johnson made a remark this evening which struck me a good deal.  ’I never (said he) knew a non-juror who could reason[884].’  Surely he did not mean to deny that faculty to many of their writers; to Hickes, Brett[885], and other eminent divines of that persuasion; and did not recollect that the seven Bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of arbitrary power, were yet Nonjurors to the new Government[886].  The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally true still.  Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house[887].