14 JOHNSON. 



But it does not appear, though Cave answered the letter, 

 that his reply was so favourable as to produce any result. 

 Upon settling in London, however, he propitiated that 

 respectable publisher with some very middling sapphics 

 in his praise, which were inserted in the Magazine, and 

 he was from thenceforth employed pretty regularly in 

 writing criticisms, biographies, and other papers, so that 

 for many years this miscellany formed the principal source 

 of his slender income. He, however, eked it out with other 

 occasional writings. A new translation was undertaken 

 at his suggestion by Dodsley and Cave, of Father Paul's 

 celebrated 'History,' with Le Courayer's Notes, which had 

 been recently added to the French edition. It appears that 

 Johnson was paid in small sums, about fifty pounds, on 

 account of this work, which was given up in consequence 

 of another being announced, and, by a singular coinci- 

 dence, also the production of a Samuel Johnson, who 

 was patronized by the Clergy. He, moreover, wrote 

 prefaces to different books, and, soon after he settled in 

 London, he published the admirable translation of Juve- 

 nal's Third Satire, entitled 'London/ which at once gave 

 him a high place among the poets of the day. It was 

 followed some years later by the 'Vanity of Human 

 Wishes,' an Imitation of the Tenth. It is known that 

 Pope at once expressed his hearty admiration of the 

 'London' in no measured terms, feeling none of the petty 

 jealousy which might have been occasioned by the fickle 

 multitude's exclamation, " Here is arisen an obscure poet 

 greater than Pope ;" his remark was, " Depend upon it, 

 he will soon be drawn out from his retreat." 



Nothing can be more painful than to contemplate 

 the struggles in which these years of his penury were 



