up a vast fund of useful and varied knowledge. He was, also, highly esteemed in the university, for his facility and harmony in the composition of Latin verse, to which, from an early period, at school, he had been strongly attached. A translation of Pope's Messiah into Latin hexameters, performed at the request of Mr. Jorden for a Christmas exercise, was the first production of Johnson's which was published, his father, with an excusable vanity, having printed it at Lichfield without the consent of his son, and it afterwards appeared in a Poetical Miscellany at Oxford, in 1731. With this version Pope was so much delighted, that he returned a copy of it to Mr. Arbuthnot, with this declaration: "the author will leave it a question to posterity, whether his poem or mine be the original." It is, indeed," a performance, which, from the dignity and melody of the versification, and the ease and accuracy with which the ideas of the original are transfused, merits much applause.

For mathematics and physics, Johnson appears to have had little relish; theology, ethics, and philosophy, were his favourite departments, and in these he made great progress during his academical life. In religion his opinions had been very lax and unsettled; and it was not until. the accidental perusal of "Law's Serious Call to

the Unconverted," whilst at Oxford, that he entered earnestly into the inquiry. He took up Law, he relates, expecting to find it a very dull book, and with a view of ridiculing it; but he soon discovered that the author was an overmatch for him; and from this era, piety, sincere though often gloomy, was a predominant feature in his character.

It was about this period, likewise, while spending the college vacation at Lichfield, and in his twentieth year, that he was first violently attacked with that hypochondriac affection from which, during the residue of life, he was seldom altogether free. Like Cowper, though by no means in so intense a degree, his judgment was frequently subjected to the partial influence of a disordered imagination. In the former instance, a permanent derangement of many years was, unhappily, the result; but, in the latter, no shade of insanity was ever produced; for, though often languid and inefficient to such a degree, that he sometimes could not distinguish the hour upon the town clock, yet was he always able to correct, though he could not preclude, the aberrations of fancy. The apprehension of approaching insanity, in a great measure the unavoidable consequence of morbid sensation, was the ingredient in Johnson's eup which poisoned the blessings of life. He

endured, however, with pious resignation, though in gloom and horror; and often exhibited, in his worst paroxysms of dejection, the most astonishing efforts of mental power. Of this he gave a remarkable proof in his first sufferance under the complaint, by drawing up a statement of his case, with so much judgment, perspicuity, and eloquence, that Dr. Swinfen of Lichfield, to whom it was addressed, inconsiderately and indelicately circulated it among his friends, as an instance of extraordinary sagacity and research; a proceeding which so much and so justly offended his patient, that the Doctor, though his godfather, was never perfectly forgiven.

He returned to college, however, in the year 1730, in tolerable health, and continued to avail himself of its numerous opportunities for literary research, until the autumn of 1731; when, no longer able to support himself in the university, owing to the distressed circumstances of his father, who had become insolvent, he returned to Lichfield without a degree, destitute with regard to pecuniary resources, and totally undetermined what plan of life he should pursue. Soon after this event, in December 1731, his father died, in the seventy-ninth year of his age; and the share of his effects, which, after providing for his mother, he received on his decease, did not

amount to more than twenty pounds. The spirit and independence of Johnson, however, were not to be shaken by the pressure of adversity; and the following note, which is copied from his diary, exhibits, on this occasion, a high tone of fortitude and virtue. 66 1732, Junii 15. Undecim aureos deposui, quodie, quidquid ante matris ponus (quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperare licet, viginti scilicet libras, accepi. Usque adeo mihi mea fortuna pingenda est interea, et ne paupertate vires animi languescant, ne in flagitia egestas adigat, cavendum."

Thus situated, it became necessary to adopt some plan for immediate subsistence; and he, therefore, readily embraced the offer of officiating as under-master of the grammar-school at Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire. To this

place he went on foot, on the sixteenth of July, 1732; but, owing to the pride and insolence of Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the seminary, and in whose house he resided as a kind of domestic chaplain, he speedily relinquished the engagement, nor could he ever reflect on the few months that were spent in this situation, without the most marked abhorrence.

At this juncture, he received and accepted an invitation from a Mr. Hector, who had formerly been his school-fellow, and who was now practising

as a Surgeon at Birmingham, to spend a few months with him as his guest. This gentleman then lodged with Mr. Warren, a bookseller of. eminence in that city, and who finding Johnson a man of literature, obtained from him some periodical for insertion in a newspaper, of essays which he was proprietor; these are, it is said, no longer in existence.

After a residence of six months with Mr. Hector, and wishing still to enjoy the solace of his society and advice, he took lodgings of a Mr. Jarvis in another part of the town; and here, at the solicitation of his friend, and Mr. Warren, he translated and abridged Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia from the French of the Abbé Le Grand, For this work, a considerable portion of which was dictated to Mr. Hector as Johnson lay in bed, he received from Mr. Warren but five guineas; a sum, that with all allowances for the value of money at the period in question, must be considered as miserably inadequate to the time and labour which were bestowed. The book was printed in octavo at Birmingham, but published anonymously in London in 1735 by Bettesworth and Hitch, of Pater-noster Row.

To the narrative of Lobo, which details the fruitless efforts of a company of Portuguese missionaries to convert the natives of Abyssinia to