and a return to Virginia, where plenty and a home
were always ready for me. "Why, sir!" he cried, "such a sum as you
mention would have been a fortune to me when I began the world, and my
friend Mr. Goldsmith would set up a coach-and-six on it. With youth,
hope, to-day, and a couple of hundred pounds in cash--no young fellow
need despair. Think, sir, you have a year at least before you, and who
knows what may chance between now and then. Why, sir, your relatives
here may provide for you, or you may succeed to your Virginian property,
or you may come into a fortune!" I did not in the course of that year,
but he did. My Lord Bute gave Mr. Johnson a pension, which set all Grub
Street in a fury against the recipient, who, to be sure, had published
his own not very flattering opinion upon pensions and pensioners.

Nevertheless, he did not altogether discourage my literary projects,
promised to procure me work from the booksellers, and faithfully
performed that kind promise. "But," says he, "sir, you must not appear
amongst them in forma pauperis.--Have you never a friend's coach, in
which we can ride to see them? You must put on your best laced hat and
waistcoat; and we must appear, sir, as if we were doing them a favour."
This stratagem answered, and procured me respect enough at the first
visit or two; but when the booksellers knew that I wanted to be paid for
my work, their backs refused to bend any more, and they treated me with
a familiarity which I could ill stomach. I overheard one of them, who
had been a footman, say, "Oh, it's Pocahontas, is it? let him wait." And
he told his boy to say as much to me. "Wait, sir?" says I, fuming
with rage and putting my head into his parlour, "I'm not accustomed to
waiting, but I have heard you are." And I strode out of the shop into
Pall Mall in a mighty fluster.

And yet Mr. D. was in the right. I came to him, if not to ask a favour,
at any rate to propose a bargain, and surely it was my business to wait
his time and convenience. In more fortunate days I asked the gentleman's
pardon, and the kind author of the Muse in Livery was instantly
appeased.

I was more prudent, or Mr. Johnson more fortunate, in an application
elsewhere, and Mr. Johnson procured me a little work from the
booksellers in translating from foreign languages, of which I happen to
know two or three. By a hard day's labour I could earn a few shillings;
so few that a week's work would hardly bring me a guinea: an