with Mr. Hawkins Browne x . As the school probably did not answer his expectation (for who does not grow tired of teaching others, especially if he wants to teach himself?), he resolved to come up to London, where everything is to be had for wit and for money (Romce omnia venalia), and to seek his fortune. He was accompanied by his pupil Mr. Garrick : and travelled on horseback to the metropolis in March, 1737 2 .
The time and business of this journey are before the public in some letters from Mr. Walmsley, who recommends Johnson as a writer of tragedy ; as a translator from the French language ; and as a good scholar 3 . He brought with him his tragedy of Irene -, which afterwards took its chance on Drury-Lane theatre 4 . Luckily he did not throw it into the fire, by design or otherwise, as Parson Adams did his ALschylus by mistake 5 . He offered himself for the service of the booksellers ; ' for he was born for nothing but to write 6 ,'
' And from the jest obscene reclaim our youth, And set our passions on the side of truth 7 .'
The hurry of this pen prevents the recollection of his first per formances. But he used to call Dodsley his patron 8 , because he made him, if not first, yet best known by printing and publishing, upon his own judgment, his Satire, called London 9 , which was an imitation of one of Juvenal, whose gravity and severity of expression he possessed. He there and then discovered how able he was 'to catch the manners living as they rise 10 . The
1 Ante, i. 266 ; Life, ii. 339. Pope, Prologue to the Satires, 1.
2 'Both of them used to talk 272.
pleasantly of this their first journey 7 ' He from the taste obscene re-
to London. Garrick, evidently mean- claims our youth,
ing to embellish a little, said one And sets the passions on the
day in my hearing, " we rode and side of truth.'
tied.'" Life, i. 101, n. I. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epis.
3 Ante, i. 368 ; Life, i. 102. 2. i. 217.
4 He had written only three acts 8 Writing about the representation of Irene on his first coming to Lon- of Dodsley's Cleone Johnson says : don ; he continued it at Greenwich ' I went the first night, and supported and finished it at Lichfield. Life, i. it as well I might ; for Doddy, you 106-7. know, is my patron, and I would not
5 Joseph Andrews, Bk. ii. ch. 12. desert him.' Life, i. 326.
6 'Heav'ns! was I born for no- 9 Ib. i. 124.
thing but to write?' I0 Pope, Essay on Man, i. 14.
poem
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