occurrences that befel him, proves at once the
small pittance that was left him, and the integrity of his mind: "1732,
Julii 15. Undecim aureos deposui: quo die quicquid ante matris funus
(quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperare licet, viginti
scilicet libras accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda est. Interea ne
paupertate vires animi languescant nec in flagitium egestas abigat,
cavendum.--1732, July 15. I laid down eleven guineas. On which day, I
received the whole of what it is allowed me to expect from my father's
property, before the decease of my mother (which I pray may be yet far
distant) namely, twenty pounds. My fortune therefore must be of my own
making. Meanwhile, let me beware lest the powers of my mind grow languid
through poverty, or want drive me to evil." On the following day we find
him setting out on foot for Market Bosworth, in Leicestershire, where he
had engaged himself as an usher to the school of which Mr. Crompton was
master. Here he described to his old school-fellow, Hector, the dull
sameness of his life, in the words of the poet: Vitam continct una dies:
that it was as unvaried as the note of the cuckoo, and that he did not
know whether it were more disagreeable for him to teach, or for the boys
to learn the grammar rules. To add to his misery, he had to endure the
petty despotism of Sir Wolstan Dixie, one of the patrons of the school.
The trial of a few months disgusted him so much with his employment,
that he relinquished it, and, removing to Birmingham, became the guest
of his friend Mr. Hector, who was a chirurgeon in that town, and lodged
in the house of a bookseller; having remained with him about six months,
he hired lodgings for himself. By Mr. Hector he was stimulated, not
without some difficulty, to make a translation from the French, of
Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia, for which he received no more than five
guineas from the bookseller, who, by an artifice not uncommon, printed
it at Birmingham, with the date of London in the title-page. To Mr.
Hector, therefore, is due the impulse which first made Johnson an
author. The motion being once given did not cease; for, having returned
to Lichfield in 1735, he sent forth in August proposals for printing by
subscription Politian's Latin Poems, with a Life of the Author, Notes,
and a History of Latin Poetry, from the age of Petrarch to that of
Politian. His reason for fixing on this era it is not easy to determine.
Mussato preceded Pet