consideration; it is not, however, to be inferred that he married merely from pecuniary motives ; from his Prayers and Meditations, and from the epitaph which he wrote to record her memory, it is evident that he thought her beautiful, and that he was sincerely and ardently attached to her. They were married at Derby, on the 9th of July,' 1736; and with the view of employing his wife's money to the best advantage, he took a large house at Edial, near Lichfield, and opened an academy for classical education. The design, however, did not succeed, though patronized by Mr. Walmsley, and duly advertised; * he obtained, indeed, but three pupils, the celebrated David Garrick, then eighteen years of age, whose father lived at Lichfield, his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, the son of a gentleman of fortune and consequence in the county. Of the leisure of Johnson, which of course was, at this time, considerable, a great part was employed in the. composition of his Irene; and, as a book of entertainment and relaxation, and, at the same time, of multifarious and recondite learning, he had recourse to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, of which he has affirmed, that " it was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736, p. 418.

The prospect of succeeding in his academy growing every day less promising, Johnson at length determined to try his fortune in the metropolis, persuaded that there, if any where, genius and talents would meet their due reward. It is remarkable, that his friend and pupil, David Garrick, had conceived a similar design; and in March 1737, these successful candidates for fame in their respective, though widely different, departments, reached London together. They were introduced by a letter from Mr. Walmsley to a Mr. Colson, a mathematician, and master of an academy, with the information that Johnson was "to try his fate with a tragedy, and to see to get himself employed in some translation, either from the Latin or the French." Of the tragedy, written; and as

however, only three acts were the finances of the poet were such as would shortly demand a recruit, it became essential, in the mean time, to obtain some productive engagement. With this view, having taken lodgings at Greenwich, he sent a letter, subscribed with his own name, and dated July 12th, 1737, to Mr. Cave, in which he proposed to translate the History of the Council of Trent, by Paul Sarpi, from a late French version by Dr. Le Courayer, whose copious notes he thought could not fail of procuring to the work a favourable reception.

The offer was accepted; but Johnson, averse to the labour of translating, soon meditated other plans, nor was the task commenced until August 2d, 1738; when, after printing twelve quarto sheets, for which he had received of Cave fortynine pounds, seven shillings, the design was given up, in consequence of a very singular rivalship; for another Mr. Samuel Johnson, librarian and curate of St. Martin's in the Fields, having engaged in the same laborious undertaking, under the patronage of Dr. Zachary Pearce, and the clergy, the interest exerted for the rival versions proved destructive to both, and, after some skirmishing between the two translators, the attempt was mutually relinquished. Notwithstanding the high character to which the history of Sarpi is justly entitled, it cannot, I think, be lamented that Johnson should, by this accident, have been compelled to change his plan of literary exertion, and to substitute original for translated composition.

Soon after his application to Cave in July, 1737, our author returned to Lichfield, with the double purpose of visiting his wife, and finishing his tragedy. Here, atter three months additional labour, the latter was completed, and he once more removed to town, accompanied by Mrs. Johnson, and high in expectation of beholding

his Irene on the stage. His hopes, however, were bitterly disappointed; Mr. Fleetwood, the manager of Drury-lane Theatre, (though strongly solicited in its favour,) rejected his tragedy; and his scheme of support from this quarter was, for a time, completely annihilated.

In this situation, his thoughts reverted to Mr. Cave; he now became a regular coadjutor in the conduct of his monthly publication, and for several years, indeed, derived his chief means of support from the assistance which he imparted to this celebrated periodical pamphlet. His first known contribution to the Gentleman's Magazine is dated March, 1738, and consists of a very beautiful Latin Ode Ad Urbanum, in which he compliments the editor in a style of great elegance and ingenuity.

About two months after this address to Mr. Urban, the poetical powers of Johnson were exhibited to the world in all their strength, by the publication of his London, a poem in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. It appeared on the same morning with Pope's satire, entituled

1738," and immediately attracted so many readers, that a second edition was required in the course of a week. Dodsley purchased the entire property, of this poem for ten guineas, a sum certainly disproportioned to the merit of the

work; but if the author's pecuniary reward was not great, the reputation which he acquired by the effort, must have equalled his most sanguine expectations. It was praised wherever it was read; and, what more particularly must have delighted Johnson, it was praised by Pope, who, having for some time in vain solicitously endeavoured to discover the new poct, is said to have declared, that "whoever he was, he would soon be deterré."

As this spirited imitation of Juvenal forms an epoch in our author's literary life, and is one of his best poetical productions, I shall consider it as introductory to an uninterrupted consideration of his compositions in this branch, and to a discussion of his general character as a POET; and this plan I shall pursue with regard to the other numerous departments of literature in which he excelled, and according to the order in which the first in merit of a class shall in succession rise to view; persuaded that, by this mode, the monotony arising from a stricter chronological detail of his various writings, the arrangement hitherto adopted by his biographers, may, in a great measure, be obviated.

Of the three imitators of the third satire of the Roman poet, Boileau, Oldham, and Johnson, the latter is, by many degrees, the most vigorous