matical school at Rochester, by a letter from a friend, who mentions the joint expedition of these two eminent men to the metropolis in the following manner:

This young gentleman and another neighbour of mine, one Mr. Samuel Johnson, set out this morning together for London-Davy Garrick is to be with you early next week, and Mr. Johnson to try his fate with a tragedy, and endeavour to get himself employed in some translation, either from the Latin or the French: Johnson is a very good scholar, and I have great hopes he will turn out a fine tragedy writer.' In London he found it necessary to practise the most rigid economy; and his Osellus, in the Art of living in London, is the real character of an Irish painter, who initiated him in the mode of living cheaply in London. Here he experienced the kindness and hospitality of Mr. Hervey, one of the branches of the Bristol family; and ever after retained a grateful sense of the services he rendered him:-not very long before his death, he thus described this early friend,Harry Hervey, he was a vicious man, but very kind to me; if you call a dog Hervey I shall love him."

In three months after he came to London, his tragedy being, as he thought, completely finished and fit for the stage, he solicited Mr. Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane Theatre, to bring it out at his house; but Mr. Fleetwood declined receiving it soon after, he was employed by Mr. Cave as a co-adjutor in his magazine, which for

some years was his principal resource for support. His first performance in the

Gentleman's Magazine' was a Latin Ode, Ad Urbanum, in March 1738; a translation of which, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in the Magazine for May following.

At this period, the misconduct and misfortunes of Savage had reduced him to the lowest state of wretchedness, as a writer for bread; and his visits at St. John's Gate, where the 'Gentleman's Magazine' was originally printed, naturally brought Johnson and him together; and, as they both possessed great abilities, and were equally under the presure of want, they had naturally a fellow feeling; so that in a short time the strictest intimacy subsisted between them. Johnson mentioned to Sir Joshua Reynolds some of their whimsical adventures in early life, and in his writings describes Savage, as having a 'graceful and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mein, but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners.' How much he admired his friend Savage for that knowledge of letters which he himself so much cultivated, and what kindness he entertained for him, is evident, from some verses he wrote for the Gentleman's Magazine,' for April 1738.

About the same time he became acquainted with Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the learned translator of Epictetus, to whom he showed particular tokens of respect; and, in the same Magazine complimented her in an Enigma to Eliza' both

in Greek and Latin. He writes Mr. Cave, 'I think she ought to be celebrated in as many different languages as Louis le Grand.'

In May 1738, he published his London, a Poem;' written in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. It has been generally said, that he offered it to several booksellers, none of whom would purchase it;-Mr. Cave at length communicated it to Dodsley, who had judgment enough to discern its intrinsick merit, and thought it creditable to be concerned in it-Dodsley gave him ten pounds for the copy. It is remarkable, that it came out the same morning with Pope's Satire, entitled 'One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight'-Pope was so struck with its merit, that he sought to discover the author, and prophesied his future fame; and, from his note to Lord Gower, it seems that he was successful in his inquiries. From a short extract in the Gentleman's Magazine for May, it appears that the poem got to the second edition in the space of a week: indeed, this admirable production, laid the foundation of Johnson's fame.

In the course of his engagement with Cave, he composed the 'Debates in the Senate of Magna Lilliputia,' the first number of which appeared in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for June 1738, sometimes with feigned names for the several speakers, and denominations formed of the letters of their real names, so that they might be easily deciphered;-Parliament then kept the press in a kind of mysterious awe, which render

ed it necessary to have recourse to such devices. The debates for sometime were taken and digested by Guthrie, and afterwards sent by Mr. Cave to Johnson for revision: when Guthrie afterwards was engaged in a diversity of employment, and the speeches were more enriched by the accession of Johnson's genius; it was resolved that he should do the whole himself, from notes furnished by persons employed to attend in both houses of parliament. His sole composition of them began November 19, 1740, and ended February 23d, 1742,3-from that time, to the year 1760, they were written by Hawkesworth.

He derived however, so little emolument from his literary productions, that notwithstanding the success of his London, he was willing to accept of an offer made him of becoming a master of a free school, at a salary of sixty pounds a year: but, as the statutes of the school required that he should be a Master of Arts, he was under the necessity of declining it. It is said of Pope, to his honour, that without any knowledge of Johnson but from his London, he recommended him to Lord Gower; who, by a letter to a friend of Swift, endeavoured to procure him a degree from Trinity College Dublin: but the expedient failed, and it is supposed that Swift declined to interfere in the business; to which circumstance Johnson's known dislike to Swift has been often imputed.

Thus disappointed, he was under the necessity of persevering in that course into which he was forced, and therefore resumed his design, of trans

lating Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent, in two volumes quarto, which was announced in the Weekly Miscellany,' Oct. 21st, 1738. Though twelve sheets of this translation were printed off, Johnson was unfortunately frustrated in his design: for it happened that another Samuel Johnson, librarian of St. Martin in the Fields, and curate of that parish, had engaged in the same undertaking, under the patronage of the learned Dr. Pearce: the consequence of which was, an opposition that destroyed the productive effects of both the works.

In the same year he took part in the opposition to the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, and published a pamphlet entitled, Marmor Norfolcience by Probus Britannicus; in which he inveighed against the Brunswick succession, and the measures of government consequent upon it, with the most intemperate zeal and pointed sarcasm. Sir John Hawkins says, that the jacobite principles inculcated in this pamphlet aroused the vigilance of the ministry, and that a warrant was issued and messengers employed to apprehend the author,' who it seems was known; but that he eluded their search, by retiring into an obscure lodging in Lambeth Marsh. Mr. Boswell denies the authenticity of this story, alledging that Mr. Steele, one of the secretaries of the treasury, had directed every possible search to be made, in the records of the treasury and secretary of state's office; but could find no trace of