pleased to call the great." The scheme proposed to him was,
that he should retire to Swansea in Wales, and receive an allowance of
fifty pounds a year, to be raised by subscription: Pope was to pay
twenty pounds. This plan, though finally established, took more than a
year before it was carried into execution. In the mean time, the
intended retreat of Savage called to Johnson's mind the third satire of
Juvenal, in which that poet takes leave of a friend, who was withdrawing
himself from all the vices of Rome. Struck with this idea, he wrote that
well-known poem, called London. The first lines manifestly point to
Savage.

"Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
When injur'd Thales bids the town farewell;
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend;
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend:
Resolv'd, at length, from vice and London far,
To breathe, in distant fields, a purer air;
And, fix'd on Cambria's solitary shore,
Give to St. David one true Briton more."

Johnson, at that time, lodged at Greenwich. He there fixes the scene,
and takes leave of his friend; who, he says in his life, parted from him
with tears in his eyes. The poem, when finished, was offered to Cave. It
happened, however, that the late Mr. Dodsley was the purchaser, at the
price of ten guineas. It was published in 1738; and Pope, we are told,
said, "The author, whoever he is, will not be long concealed;" alluding
to the passage in Terence, "Ubi, ubi est, diu celari non potest."
Notwithstanding that prediction, it does not appear that, besides the
copy-money, any advantage accrued to the author of a poem, written with
the elegance and energy of Pope. Johnson, in August, 1738, went, with
all the fame of his poetry, to offer himself a candidate for the
mastership of the school at Appleby, in Leicestershire. The statutes of
the place required, that the person chosen should be a master of arts.
To remove this objection, the then lord Gower was induced to write to a
friend, in order to obtain for Johnson a master's degree in the
university of Dublin, by the recommendation of Dr. Swift. The letter was
printed in one of the magazines, and was as follows:

SIR,--Mr. Samuel Johnson, author of London, a satire, and some other
poetical pieces, is a native of this county, and much respected by some
worthy gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who are trustees of a
charity-school, now vacant; the certain salary of which is sixty pounds
pe