patrons, and he next offered his services to Cave, the original projector of the "Gentleman's Magazine." Cave accepted his offer, but on conditions which compelled Johnson to make

application elsewhere for earning the means of living. He again offered to become assistant to the master of a grammar school; but, in spite of the great learning he had even then acquired, he was rejected, from the fear that

his peculiar nervous and involuntary gestures would render him an object of ridicule with his pupils. Such was one of the disabilities of constitution under which this humbly-born and strong-minded man laboured through life.

Won, not by his ungainly person, but by the high qualities of his mind, a widow with a little fortune of eight hundred pounds, yielded him her hand, in this season of his poverty; and he immediately opened a classical school in his native town. The celebrated Garrick, then about eighteen years old, became his pupil. His scheme, however, did not succeed; his newly acquired property was exhausted; and he and Garrick, then eight years his junior, set out together for London, with the resolve to seek their fortunes in the larger world. Garrick in a short time was acknowledged as the first genius on the stage, and made his way to wealth almost without difficulty. A longer and more toilful period of trial fell to the lot of the scholar and author. He first offered to the booksellers a manuscript tragedy, supposed to be his "Irene," but could find no one willing to accept it. Cave gave him an engagement to

E

translate the "History of the Council of Trent.” He received forty-nine pounds for part of the translation, but it was never completed, for lack of sale. His pecuniary condition was so low, soon after this, that he and Savage having walked, conversing, round Grosvenor Square, till four in the morning, and beginning to feel the want of refreshment, could not muster between them more than fourpence-halfpenny! He received ten guineas for his celebrated poem of "London;" but though Pope said, "The author, whoever he was, could not be long concealed," no further advantage was derived by Johnson from its publication. Hearing of a vacancy in the mastership of another grammar school in Leicestershire, he, once more, proceeds thither as a candidate. consequences of the poverty which had prevented him from remaining at the university till he could take a degree were now grievously felt. The statutes of the place required that the person chosen should be a Master of Arts. Some interest was made to obtain him that degree from the Dublin University; but, it failed, and he was again thrown back on London.

The

In spite of his melancholic constitution, these repeated disappointments, so far from fing him with despair, seem only to have quickened his invention, and strengthened his resolution to continue the struggle for fame. He formed numerous projects on his return to the metropolis; but none succeeded except his contributions to the "Gentleman's Magazine;" these were, chiefly, the "Parliamentary Debates," which the world read with the belief that they were thus becoming acquainted with the eloquence of Chatham, Walpole, and their compeers, and little dreaming that those speeches were "written in a garret in Exeter Street” by a poverty-stricken author. The talent displayed in this anonymous labour did not serve, as yet, to free him from difficulties. He next, undertook to collect and arrange the tracts forming the miscellany, entitled “Harleian.” Osborne, the bookseller, was his employer in this work; and, having purchased Lord Oxford's library, the bookseller also employed Johnson to form a catalogue. To relieve his drudgery, Johnson occasionally paused to peruse the book that came to hand; Osborne

Chapter the Second.-Authors.

SHAKSPEARE.-SPENSER.-JOHNSON.-GIFFORD.

GIBBON.

CREATIVE genius is popularly held to be dependent on faculties widely diverse from those required by the mere man of learning. The linguist is usually regarded as a traveller on a beaten track; the poet as a discoverer of new regions. Success for the man of learning is considered to depend on diligence in the exercise of the memory and judgment; while obedience to impulse seems to be the mental law popularly allotted to poets. Let the young reader enquire for himself whether there is not something of fallacy in this popular notion.