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his Alma Mater, and how even rigid Rector Clap was willing to accept
help from such a quarter." **'
The degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology was conferred upon him,
to his great gratification, by the University of Oxford, in 1743, "ut incred-
ibili Ecclesise incremento summam sui expectationem sustinuerit plane et
superaverit." Dr. Johnson was, from his youth up, a zealous student in all
those departments of knowledge, open in his day, which connected them-
selves with theology, but especially in the department of philosophical
speculation, and read every book he could obtain relative to them. His
latest biographer says :
" Had he lived in these times, he would have been distinguished among men of
learning, and recognized by them as an honest and patient lover of truth and justice.
That he attained to such excellence under all the disadvantages of the period in
which he was a conspicuous actor, is remarkable. He dared to think for himself,
and, if his keen penetration discovered defects in theological and philosophical
systems, he was careful not to accept any new views until he had fairly examined the
opposing arguments and tested them by the strongest proofs within his reach." "
The fullest list of his published writings which we have seen is to be
found in Prof. Dexter's book just referred to.**
We have purposely left to the last to record his election to be the first
President of King's (Columbia) College. He removed from Stratford to
accept the presidency in 1754, and retired again to Stratford in 1763.
During these nine years the new College was largely dependent for support
upon contributions from England, but had not sufficient from this source
to raise it above a precarious existence, in striking contrast with its present
affluence, and its eminence as a seat of varied learning. Of the year suc-
*' Biogr. Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals. ... By Franklin Bowditch
Dexter. . . . New
York, 1885, p. 723.
*' Beardsley's Samuel Johnson, ut supra, p. 354.
'^ Dexter's Biographical Sketches, ut supra, pp. 126-28.
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