advances, or courting an intimacy with Johnfon. Upon the first approach of a stranger, his practice was to continue fitting, a posture in which he was ever to be found, and, for a few minutes, to continue filent:

if

were contained fundry geographical and other plates. Each of these he infcribed to one or other of his friends; and, among the rest, one • To Mojes Browne.' With this blunt and familiar designation of his person, Mr. Browne was justly offended: to appease him, Cave directed an engraver, to introduce with a caret under the line, Mr. and thought, that in so doing, he had made ample amends to Mr. Browne for the indignity done him.

Mr. John Duick, also a pen-cutter, and a near neighbour of Cave, was a frequent contributor to the Magazine, of short poems, written with spirit and ease. He was a kinsman of Browne, and the author of a good copy of encomiaftic verses prefixed to the collection of Browne's poems above-mentioned.

Mr. Foster Webb, a young man who had received his education in Mr. Watkins's academy in Spital-square, and afterwards became clerk to a merchant in the city, was, at first, a contributor to the Magazine, of enigmas, a species of poetry in which he then delighted, but was dissuaded from it by the following lines, which appeared in the Magazine for October, 1740, after a few successful essays in that kind of writing:

• Too modest bard, with enigmatic veil

• No longer let thy muse her charms conceal;

،

Though oft the Sun in clouds his face disguise,

• Still he looks nobler when he gilds the skies.

• Do thou, like him, avow thy native flame,

• Burst thro' the gloom, and brighten into fame.'

After this friendly exhortation, Mr. Webb, in those hours of leisure which business afforded, amused himself with tranflating from the Latin classics, particularly Ovid and Horace: from the latter of these he rendered into English verse, with better fuccefs than any that had before attempted it, the odes Quis multa ' gracilis te puer in rosa ;' ' Solvitur acris hyems grata vice veris, & 'Favoni,' 'Parcus Deorum cultor & infrequens;' and 'Diffugêre ni'ves, redeunt jam gramina campis; all which are inferted in Cave's Magazine.

if at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine, then in the press, into the hand of his visitor, and asking his opinion of it. I remember that, calling in on him

Magazine. His fignature was sometimes Telarius, at others Vedastus. He was a modest, ingenious, and sober young man; but a consumption defeated the hopes of his friends, and took him off in the twenty-fecond year of his age.

Mr. John Smith, another of Mr. Watkins's pupils, was a writer in the Magazine, of prose essays, chiefly on religious and moral subjects, and died of a decline about the same time.

Mr. John Canton, apprentice to the above-named Mr. Watkins, and also his successor in his academy, was a contributor to the Magazine, of verses, and afterwards, of papers on philosophical and mathematical subjects. The discoveries he made in electricity and magnetism are well known, and are recorded in the transactions of the Royal Society, of which he afterwards became a member.

him once, he gave me to read the beautiful poem of Collins, written for Shakespeare's Cymbeline, ‘Το fair Fidele's grassy tomb, which, though adapted to a particular circumstance in the play, Cave was for inferting in his Magazine, without any reference to the fubject: I told him it would lose of its beauty if it were so published: this he could not fee; nor could he be convinced of the propriety of the name Fidele: he thought Paftora a better, and so printed it.

He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson's abili ties, that, meaning at one time to dazzle him with the splendor of fome of those luminaries in literature who favoured him with their correfpondence, he told him that, if he would, in the evening, be at a certain alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of feeing Mr. Browne and another or

supported by the Dissenters, the design whereof was to qualify young men for their ministry. Mr. Eames was formerly the con tinuator of the abridgement of the Philosophical Transactions begun by Jones and Lowthorp, and was a man of great knowledge, and a very able tutor. Under him were bred many young men who afterwards became eminently diftinguished for learning and abilities; among them were the late Mr. Parry, of Cirencester, the late Dr. Furneaux, and Dr. Gibbons; and, if I mistake not, the present Dr. Price. The pupils of this academy had heads that teemed with knowledge, which, as fast as they acquired it, they were prompted by a juvenile and laudable ambition to communicate in letters to Mr. Urban.

To this account of Cave's correspondents might be added the celebrated names of Dr. Birch, who will be spoken of hereafter, Mrs. Carter, Dr. Akenside, the Rev. Mr. Samuel Pegge, who, by an ingenious transposition of the letters of his name, formed the plaufible fignature of Paul Gemsege; Mr. Luck, of Barnstaple in Devonshire; Mr. Henry Price, of Pool, in Dorsetshire; Mr. Richard Yate, of Chively, in Shropshire; Mr. John Bancks; and, that industrious and prolific genius, Mr. John Lockman,

two of the perfons mentioned in the preceding note: Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's coat, and fuch a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the fight of Mr. Browne, whom he found fitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-fmoke, had his curiosity gratified.

Johnson saw very clearly those offenfive particulars that made a part of Cave's character; but, as he was one of the most quick-fighted men I ever knew in difcovering the good and amiable qualities of others, a faculty which he has displayed, as well in the life of Cave, as in that of Savage, printed among his works, so was he ever inclined to palliate their defects; and, though he was above courting the patronage of a man, whom, for many reasons, he could not but hold cheap, he disdained not to accept it, when tendered with any degree of complacency.

And this was the general tenor of Johnson's behaviour; for, though his character through life was marked with a roughness that approached to ferocity, it was in the power of almost every one to charm him into mildness, and to render him gentle and placid, and even courteous, by such a patient and respectful attention as is due to every one, who, in his discourse, fignifies a defire either to instruct or delight. Bred to no profeffion, without relations, friends, or intereft, Johnson was an adventurer in the wide world, and had his fortunes to make: the arts of infinuation and address were, in his opinion, too flow in their operation to answer his purpose; and, he rather chose to display his parts to all the world, at the risque of being thought arrogant, than to wait for the assistance

of

of such friends as he could make, or the patronage of fome individual that had power or influence, and who might have the kindness to take him by the hand, and lift him into notice. With all that asperity of manners with which he has been charged, and which kept at a distance many, who, to my knowledge, would have been glad of an intimacy with him, he possessed the affections of pity and compassion in a most eminent degree. In a mixed company, of which I was one, the conversation turned on the pestilence which raged in London, in the year 1665, and gave occasion to Johnfon to fpeak of Dr. Nathanael Hodges, who, in the height of that calamity, continued in the city, and was almost the only one of his profession that had the courage to oppose the endeavours of his art to the spreading of the contagion. It was the hard fate of this person, a short time after, to die a prifoner for debt, in Ludgate: Johnson related this circumstance to us, with the tears ready to start from his eyes; and, with great energy, faid, 'Such a man would not have been fuffered 'to perish in these times.'

It seems by the event of this first expedition, that Johnson came to London for little else than to look about him: it afforded him no opportunity of forming connections, either valuable in themselves, or available to any future purpose of his life. Mr. Pope had feen and commended his tranflation of the Messiah; but Johnfon had not the means of access to him; and, being a stranger to his person, his spirit would not permit him to folicit so great a favour from one, who must be supposed to have been troubled with fuch kind of applications. With one person, however, he commenced an intimacy, the motives to which, at first view

E2