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

Liber ut esse velim, fuasisti, pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber; pulchra Maria, vale."

Of this epigram, Mrs. Piozzi, and Mr.
Joddrel, and Mr. Bofwell, among others,
have offered translations. The following
version 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 share amounted only to twenty pounds.

In the forlorn state 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 Woolston 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. Bof

well terms

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complicated misery," 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 some time with him at Birmingham, as his guest, at the house of Mr. Warren, with whom he lodged. Mr. Warren was the first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, and obtained the afsistance of his pen, in furnishing some periodical essays in a newfpaper of which he was proprietor.

In June 1733, he resided 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 Abyssinia, 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 tranflator's, name, he had from Mr. Warren only five guineas. It is the first prose work of Johnson; but it exhibits no specimen of elegance; neither is it marked by any character of style, 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 specimens of that style of thought and manner of expression, which he afterwards adopted.

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

proposals for printing by subscription an edition of the Latin poems of Politian, Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus notas, cum historia Latinæ poefeos, a Petrarchæ ævo ad Politiani tempora deducta et vita Politiani, fufius quam antehac enarrata, addidit SAM. JOHNSON; the work to be printed in thirty 8vo sheets, price 5s. Subscriptions taken 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.

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We find him again this year at Birmingham; and in order to procure some little subsistence 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, sometimes to supply him with

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poems, inscriptions, &c, never printed before, and short literary differtations in Latin or English, critical remarks on authors, ancient or modern, forgotten poems that deserve revival, loose pieces, like Floyer's, worth preserving." To this letter Mr. Cave returned an answer, dated December 2. 1734; but it does not appear that any thing was done in confequence of it.

He had, from his infancy, been sensible to the influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge school he was much enamoured of Olivia Llyod, a young Quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses; he conceived a tender passion for Lucy Porter, whose mother he afterwards married, and whom he had frequent opportunities of seeing at the house of Mr. Hunter of Litchfield, whose second wife was her aunt. He addressed to her, as she herself informed Miss Seward, "when he was a lad," the verses to a Lady, on her presenting

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