received in his youth the best education they were capable of giving
him. By this he became able to read tolerably and write well enough for
that business to which he was bred, viz., a tailor. Throughout his
apprenticeship he behaved himself virtuously and industriously, and left
his master with the character of a faithful and deserving young man.
When his time was out, and he had wrought for some time as a journeyman
in the country, the common whim of coming up to London seized him; and
after he had spent some time in town in working hard at his trade, he
married a wife with whom he lived in good correspondence for many years,
with the esteem and respect of all who knew him. But his family
increasing and he consequently finding the charge of maintaining them
rise higher than formerly, and, what was worse, that all he was capable
of doing could not maintain them, he grew very melancholy.

After considering several projects for making his circumstances more
easy, he at last pitched upon going into Lincolnshire, as a place where
the cheapness of provisions might balance the number of mouths he had to
feed. But he had not been long there before he discovered his mistake,
for the smallness of wages made everything rather dearer than cheaper,
which plunged him into new difficulties, and rendered him incapable of
ease or satisfaction. While his wits were thus on the rack, and his
invention stretched to the uttermost in order to find out some means or
other to recoup his pockets, he unfortunately fell into the company of a
man who, under the pretence of being his most zealous friend, became,
though perhaps unwittingly, the instrument of his utter ruin. For his
appearing ever disconsolate and melancholy gave the countryman an
opportunity of prying into the cause of his concern, which he soon
discovered to be the narrowness of his circumstances. As we naturally
find ease in communicating our afflictions to others, so Johnson was
ready enough to inform him of the truth of his affairs, and the man no
less assiduous in endeavouring to help him out of these straits into
which he had fallen.

At last, his Lincolnshire acquaintance told him there was but one way of
recovering his misfortunes and living like a man without labour, to
which Johnson began now to have a great aversion, and therefore he
eagerly desired to be acquainted with this delightful way of getting on.
With a grave face his associate told him that what he was about t