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I made this epigram upon her. She was the lovelieft creature I ever faw!

Liber ut effe velim, fuafifti, pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber; pulchra Maria, vale.”

Of this epigram, Mrs. Piozzi, and Mr. Joddrel, and Mr. Bofwell, among others, have offered tranflations. The following verfion is given by Mr. Bofwell:

Adieu Maria! fince you'd have me free:
For who beholds thy charms, a flave must be.

In December 1731, his father died, in the 79th year of his age, in very narrow circumstances; for, after providing for his mother, that portion of the effects which fell to his fhare amounted only to twenty pounds.

In the forlorn ftate of his circumstances, he accepted the employment of usher in the school of Market-Bofworth in Leiceftershire, to which he went on foot, July

16. 1732. He refided in the house of Sir Woolfton Dixie, the patron of the school, to whom he officiated as a kind of domestic chaplain; and who treated him with intolerable harshness. His employment was irksome to him in every respect; and after fuffering for a few months, what Mr. Bofwell terms " complicated mifery," he relinquished a fituation which he ever afterwards remembered with a degree of horror.

Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by Mr. Hector to pass fome time with him at Birmingham, as his gueft, at the house of Mr. Warren, with whom he lodged. Mr. Warren was the first established bookfeller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, and obtained the affiftance of his pen, in furnishing fome periodical effays in a newfpaper of which he was proprietor.

In June 1733, he refided in the house of a perfon named Jarvis, in another part

of the town, where he tranflated and abridged, from the French of the Abbé Le Grand, a Voyage to Abyffinia, written originally by Jerome Lobo, a Portuguese Jefuit. For this work, which was printed in Birmingham, and published by Bettesworth and Hitch of Pater-nofter Row, London, 8vo, 1735, but without the translator's, name, he had from Mr. Warren only five guineas. It is the first prose work of Johnfon; but it exhibits no fpecimen of elegance; neither is it marked by any character of ftyle, which would lead to a difcovery of the tranflator, from an acquaintance with his latter productions. It has, however, been justly remarked by Mr. Bofwell, that the Preface and Dedication, contain strong and not unfavourable fpecimens of thạt style of thought and manner of expreffion, which he afterwards adopted.

In February 1734, he returned to Litchfield, and in Auguft following, published

propofals for printing by fubfcription an édition of the Latin poems of Politian, Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus notas, cum hiftoria Latina poefeos, a Petrarcha avo ad Politiani tempora deducta et vita Politiani, fufius quam antehac enarrata, addidit SAM. JOHNSON; the work to be printed in thirty 8vo fheets, price 5s. Subscriptions taken

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in by the editor, or N. Johnson, bookfeller of Litchfield," his brother, who had taken up his father's trade. For want of encouragement, the work never appeared, and probably never was executed.

We find him again this year at Birmingham; and in order to procure fome little fubfiftence by his pen, he addressed a letter, under the name of S. Smith, to Mr. Edward Cave, the proprietor of the "Gentleman's Magazine," November 25. 1734, in which he proposed, on reasonable terms, fometimes to fupply him with

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poems, infcriptions, &c, never printed be-
fore, and short literary differtations in La-
tin or English, critical remarks on authors,
ancient or modern, forgotten poems that
deferve revival, loose pieces, like Floyer's,
worth preferving." To this letter Mr.
Cave returned an anfwer, dated December
2. 1734; but it does not appear
that any
thing was done in confequence of it.

He had, from his infancy, been fenfible to the influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge fchool he was much enamoured of Olivia Llyod, a young Quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses; he conceived a tender paffion for Lucy Porter, whofe mother he afterwards married, and whom he had frequent opportunities of feeing at the house of Mr. Hunter of Litchfield, whofe fecond wife was her aunt. He addressed to her, as she herfelf informed Miss Seward, "when he was a lad," the verses to a Lady, on her prefenting

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