Mr. Norris, in Exeter-street, adjoining Catharine-street, in the Strand. Of his daily expenses he gives the following account: "I dined very well for eightpence, with very good company, at the 'Pine Apple,' in New-street, just by. Several of them had traveled. They expected to meet every day, but did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing." While at Birmingham, he had become somewhat acquainted with an Irish painter, whom he described as "a very sensible man, who perfectly understood common affairs; a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books." According to this man's estimate of things," thirty pounds a-year was enough to enable a man to live there without being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for clothes and linen. He said a man might live in a garret for eighteenpence a-week; few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, 'I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean-shirt days he went abroad and paid visits." Just how far Johnson practiced upon his friend's system of economy, he had too much sensibility and good taste to state definitely; it is probable that his secret history during this period would not have been less curious and instructive than was that of the Irish artist. But he bore the whole of it with fortitude, and maintained in his deepest depression the spirit of independent manhood.

How he employed himself on his first coming to London is not certainly known. It is rela ed that Mr. Walmsley gave him a letter of introduction to Lintot, his bookseller, and that Johnson wrote some for him. He also called on another bookseller, named Wilcox, who, when informed of his intention to gain a livelihood by literature, gazed significantly at his giant frame and remarked: "You had better buy a porter's knot." Of this man, however, Johnson declared: "He was one of my

best friends." Nearly four months after his arrival in London, he addressed a note to Cave, proposing to translate from the original Italian Father Sarpi's "History of the Council of Trent," with the notes of Le Courayer, from the French. The account of this business will occur in another place. This notice of it is here introduced to indicate the manner in which he was occupied, and the kind of efforts he put forth to get himself forward in life.

In all this dismal obscurity there was one circumstance that afforded some mitigation of its gloom. He was acquainted with Mr. Henry Hervey, a man of good family and of genteel manners, who had served in the army and been stationed at Lichfield, where Johnson knew him. At the house of this gentleman he was frequently entertained, and had an opportunity of meeting cultivated company. This kindness was highly appreciated by Johnson; so that, while he confessed that his friend was a vicious man, he declared, “if you call a dog Hervey I shall love him.”

At this time it seems he had written but three acts of Irene; and as he was not otherwise occupied, and also depended on that production for both present relief and future fame, he directed his attention more closely to it. For this purpose he changed his lodgings to Greenwich, and there, in almost absolute solitude, though daily jostled by the unknown multitude, he labored assiduously and in hope upon his favorite theme. He was accustomed to compose while walking in the park, and afterward to reduce to writing what he had thus elaborated.

In the latter part of the summer he returned to Lichfield, where he remained three months; and during this time "Irene" was completed. At the end of that period he returned to London, taking Mrs. Johnson with him, but leaving her daughter, Miss Lucy Porter, now a grownup young woman, with his aged mother at Lichfield. His first lodgings after his return were in Woodstock-street, Hanoversquare, and afterward in Castle-street, near Cavendish-square. Of his private life for a long time after his settlement in the metropolis we have but scanty accounts; enough, however, to indicate that he was no stranger to want in its most painful form.

Johnson's correspondence with Cave, the publisher of the "Gentleman's Maga

one hand, as it would have been indignantly spurned on the other; but Cave had need of Johnson's service, for which he was ready to make what was deemed a fair compensation, and Johnson wanted employment and means of subsistence, which were here offered him on terms not incompatible with honor and self-respect.

ST. JOHN'S GATE.

An incident connected with this period of Johnson's history may be here related, as a matter of curious interest marking the early steps of the progress of one who soon after dazzled the gay world of the metropolis by the unrivaled power of his imitative genius. Johnson's intimacy at St. John's Gate drew Garrick thither also; and though Cave had no great taste for diversions, yet learning that the young friend of his coadjutor had an inclination to the stage, he expressed a wish to see him in some comic character. A room was accordingly fitted up over the great arch of the gate, where, assisted by a few journeymen printers, the future Roscius of the English stage represented, with all the graces of comic humor, the principal character in Fielding's farce of the Mock Doctor.

We have here to contemplate Samuel Johnson, whose fame has become co-extensive with the literary world, and is destined to last as long as the English language,

at nearly thirty years of age, bound down to a sub-editorship, toiling with unremitting diligence "for gain, not glory." He had improved his condition by his new engagement, and yet even now his situation was tolerable only as an alternative to the state of actual want for which it had been exchanged. That he was far

from being satisfied with what he had attained is evident; he knew he deserved a better fate, and though the future was not prodigal of promises he could not assent to forego the hopes of better days to come. An occasional indication of what was in him was given in some of his happier or more elaborate productions, though as yet the world had seen but few indications of the transcendent powers that were maturing within him. At length, however, a production of his pen broke upon the world, that gave assurance of the man. In May, 1738, his "LONDON, a Poem in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal," was published, which at once burst forth like the blaze of a meteor. Neither the theme nor the mode of treatment possessed the advantages of novelty for "the manners of the town" are the unfailing subject of the strictures of the satirical muse; and this same satire of Juvenal had been already applied in parody or by imitation, to Paris by Boileau, and to London by Oldham. It was impossible therefore for Johnson in this case to win renown or even to escape contempt, except by excelling his co-imitators, without imitating them. The attempt was a bold one, and may be considered as another evidence that from an early period of his history he was to a good degree confident of his own powers.

Of the history of the production of this poem we have no information except as to its date. The author himself inscribed upon his own corrected copy "written in 1738;" and as it was published in May of that year, and seems, from the correspondence concerning its publication, to have been completed some two months before, the time of its composition is narrowed down to the months of January and February. Nor is it difficult to suppose that with such vigor of mind as Johnson then possessed, he might, in that time,

using only his occasional leisure, throw off, and afterward revise and correct for publication, a piece of some two hundred and fifty lines. When the poem was ready for publication, Johnson sent it to Cave for his inspection, feigning to act for the author-a third person who chose not to be known-and accompanying it by a letter full of complimentary allusions to both the discernment and the liberality of the publisher. He pleaded for a favorable consideration of the article on account of the necessities of the author, "who," he writes, "lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances of fortune." It is melancholy to contemplate genius united to virtue thus driven by want to make haste to exchange its choicest productions for the means of subsistence; yet such has often been the case, and many of the fairest gems of literature have been the products of minds and hearts oppressed with sorrows and sheer want of the most common necessaries. How the poem appeared to Cave is not known. Probably he could not form any intelligent estimate of its character: but if he had but little taste, he was not altogether without generosity; for in Johnson's next letter there is an acknowledgment of a present for the unknown author, which he promises shall be deducted from the price of the manuscript, should it be printed. Cave, it would seem, suggested that the poem should be shown to Dodsley. Johnson proposed to take the manuscript and read it to him; still insisting that Cave should be the real publisher, for he adds: "I am very sensible, from your generosity on this occasion, of your regard to learning, even in its unhappiest estate; and cannot but think such a temper deserving of the gratitude of those who suffer so often from a contrary disposition." But the paper was forwarded directly to Dodsley, and a few days later Johnson called on him. Mr. Robert Dodsley was a very different sort of man from his fellowpublisher, Mr. Cave. He was more than a mere publisher; and, in his aspirations to the title of a man of letters, was not an empty pretender. He was equally distinguished for discernment, frankness, and geniality of spirit, and all these qualities were manifested on this occasion. Soon after this interview, Johnson again wrote to Cave: "I was to-day with Mr. Dodsley, who declares very warmly in favor of

the paper you sent him, which he desires to have a share in, it being, as he says, a creditable thing to be concerned in. I knew not what answer to make till I had consulted you, nor what to demand on the author's part, but am very willing, if you please, he should have a part in it." Cave generously consented that any arrangement thought desirable might be made with Dodsley, who thereupon gave Johnson ten guineas for the manuscript, a price that the author himself esteemed as liberal.

Considered by itself, and without respect to its circumstances, "London" is a production of very considerable merit. As a poem, it is second to only such pieces as Goldsmith's "Traveler" and "Deserted Village," Gray's " Churchyard Elegy," Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope" and "Gertrude," and a few other pieces of the same class. Its pretensions are necessarily very moderate, as must be the case with a satire on the times. But the thoughts are far from being mere commonplaces; the style is dignified, yet easy; and the versification, though not faultless, is above mediocrity. According to its professed design, "London" is a satire upon the manners of the times in which it was produced. Following the train of thought given by Juvenal, he makes the retirement of a friend to the quiet of the country the occasion of an invective against the manners of the town. Some brief references are first made to private disorders and individual miseries-to "malice," "rapine," and "accident;" to the "rage" of "fires" and "rabbles," and perils from "fell attorneys;" to dangers from "falling houses," and the horrors of being talked