sketch of this tragedy, in his own hand-writing,
and gave it to Mr. Langton, by whose favour a copy of it is now in my
possession.

Johnson's residence at Lichfield, on his return to it at this time, was
only for three months; and as he had as yet seen but a small part of
the wonders of the Metropolis, he had little to tell his townsmen. He
related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: 'In the
last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people,
those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the
quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London,
my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or
those who took it. NOW it is fixed that every man keeps to the right;
or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a
dispute.'

He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson; but her daughter, who had
lived with them at Edial, was left with her relations in the
country. His lodgings were for some time in Woodstock-street, near
Hanover-square, and afterwards in Castle-street, near Cavendish-square.

His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely finished
and fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it should be brought
forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that Johnson and he went together to
the Fountain tavern, and read it over, and that he afterwards solicited
Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury-lane theatre, to have it acted at
his house; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably because it
was not patronized by some man of high rank; and it was not acted till
1749, when his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre.

The Gentleman's Magazine, begun and carried on by Mr. Edward Cave,
under the name of SYLVANUS URBAN, had attracted the notice and esteem of
Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London as an adventurer
in literature. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's Gate, the
place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed,
he 'beheld it with reverence.'

It appears that he was now enlisted by Mr. Cave as a regular coadjutor
in his magazine, by which he probably obtained a tolerable livelihood.
At what time, or by what means, he had acquired a competent knowledge
both of French and Italian, I do not know; but he was so well skilled in
them, as to be sufficiently qualified for a translator. That part of his
labour which consisted in emendation