=3= 17-18. =Macrobius.= A Roman grammarian who probably lived at the beginning of the fifth century.
=3= 20. =about three years.= Apparently Johnson remained at Oxford only fourteen months. See Dr. Hill's _Dr. Johnson, His Friends and His Critics_.
=4= 1-2. "It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority."--Johnson, quoted by Boswell. Although aware of what he considered the defects of his college, Johnson loved Pembroke as long as he lived. He delighted in boasting of its eminent graduates and would have left to it his house at Lichfield had not wiser friends induced him to bequeath it to some poor relatives.
=4= 15-16. =his father died.= "I now therefore see that I must make my own fortune. Meanwhile let me take care that the powers of my mind be not debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any criminal act."--Johnson, quoted by Boswell.
=5= 32. =Walmesley.= "I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great, and what he did not immediately know, he could, at least, tell where to find."--Johnson, quoted by Boswell.
=6= 13. =Politian.= Another of "the great restorers of learning" (see =2= 31). His beginning of a translation of the _Iliad_ into Latin attracted the attention of Lorenzo de' Medici, under whose patronage he became one of the first scholars of Italy.
=6= 17. =fell in love.= Boswell says that Johnson's early attachments to the fair sex were "very transient," and considers it but natural that when the passion of love once seized him it should be exceedingly strong, concentrated as it was in one object.
=6= 22. =Queensberrys and Lepels.= Families of high rank in England.
=7= 3-4. =half ludicrous.= Carlyle says it is no matter for ridicule that the man "whose look all men both laughed at and shuddered at, should find any brave female heart, to acknowledge, at first sight and hearing of him, 'This is the most sensible man I ever met with'; and then, with generous courage, to take him to itself, and say Be thou mine!... Johnson's deathless affection for his Tetty was always venerable and noble."