there is the following advertisement:

"At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded
and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON."

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated
David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young
gentleman of fortune, who died early.

Johnson, indeed, was not more satisfied with his situation as the master
of an academy than with that of the usher of a school; we need not
wonder, therefore, that he did not keep his academy more than a year and
a half. From Mr. Garrick's account he did not appear to have been
profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner and uncouth
gesticulations could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and in
particular, the young rogues used to turn into ridicule his awkward
fondness for Mrs. Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar
appellation of Tetty or Tetsey, which, like Betty or Betsey, is
provincially used as a contraction for Elizabeth, her Christian name,
but which to us seems ludicrous when applied to a woman of her age and
appearance. Mr. Garrick described her to me as very fat, with swelled
cheeks of a florid red produced by thick painting, and increased by the
liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastic in her dress, and
affected both in her speech and her general behaviour.

While Johnson kept his academy, I have not discovered that he wrote
anything except a great portion of his tragedy of "Irene." When he had
finished some part of it, he read what he had done to his friend, Mr.
Gilbert Walmsley, Registrar of the Prerogative Court of Lichfield, who
was so well pleased with this proof of Johnson's abilities as a dramatic
writer that he advised him to finish the tragedy and produce it on the
stage. Accordingly, Johnson and his friend and pupil, David Garrick,
went to try their fortunes in London in 1737, the former with the hopes
of getting work as a translator and of turning out a fine
tragedy-writer, the latter with the intention of completing his
education, and of following the profession of the law. How, indeed,
Johnson employed himself upon his first coming to London is not
particularly known. His tragedy, of which he had entertained such hopes,
was submitted to Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, and
rejected.

_III.--Poverty Stricken in London_

Johnson's first performance in the "Gentleman's Magazine," which for