To London he had probably looked as to the great mart of genius, but
at first he met with mortifying disappointment. He made one
influential friend, however, in an officer named Henry Hervey, of whom
he said, "He was a vicious man, but very kind to me; were you to call
a dog Hervey, I shall love him." In summer he came back to Lichfield,
where he stayed three months, and finished his tragedy. He returned to
London in autumn, along with his wife, and tried, but in vain, to get
"Irene" presented on the stage. This did not happen till 1749, when
his old pupil David Garrick had become manager of Drury Lane Theatre.

In March 1738, he began to contribute to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, a
magazine he had long admired, and the original printing-place of
which--St John's Gate--he "beheld with reverence" when he first passed
it. Amidst the variety of his contributions, the most remarkable were
his "Debates in the Senate of Lilliput"--vigorous paraphrases of the
parliamentary discussions--of which Johnson finding the mere skeleton
given him by the reporters, was at the pains of clothing it with the
flesh and blood of his own powerful diction. In May of the same year
appeared his noble imitation of Juvenal, "London," which at once made
him famous. After it had been rejected by several publishers, it was
bought by Dodsley for ten guineas. It came out the same morning with
Pope's satire, entitled "1738," and excited a much greater sensation.
The buzzing question ran, "What great unknown genius can this be?" The
poem went to a second edition in a week; and Pope himself, who had
read it with pleasure, when told that its author was an obscure man
named Johnson, replied, "He will soon be _déterré_."

Famous as he had now become, he continued poor; and tired to death of
slaving for the booksellers, he applied, through the influence of Pope