keep a man in good appearance; a garret could be hired for eighteen pence
a week, and if any one asked your address you could reply, "I am to be
found in such a place," Threepence laid out at a coffeehouse would enable
one to pass some hours a day in good company; dinner might be had for
sixpence, and supper you could do without. On clean-shirt day you could go
abroad and call on your lady friends. Among Johnson's first literary tasks
in London was the work of reporting the debates in Parliament. In order
that the best possible results might be obtained, he resorted to the
rather unique, but not entirely original, method of not attending
Parliament at all. Two or three young men would be sent to listen to the
debates; they would make notes giving the general drift of the argument,
and Johnson would write out the speech. His style was exactly suited to
this kind of work, being eminently rhetorical. And as at the time no
public record of proceedings was kept and Parliament did not allow the
press the liberty it now possesses--all being as it were clouded in
mysterious awe--these reports of debates were eagerly sought after. To
evade the law, a fictitious name was given the speaker, or his initials
used in such a way that the individual could be easily recognized by the
reading public.

Some of Johnson's best work was done at this time, and in several
instances the speaker, not slow to appreciate a good thing, allowed the
matter to be reissued as his own. Long years after, a certain man was once
praising the speeches of Lord Chesterfield and was led on to make
explanations. He did so, naming two speeches, one of which he zealously
declared had the style of Cicero; the other that of Demosthenes. Johnson
becalmed the speaker by agreeing with him as to the excellence of the
speeches, and then adding, "I wrote them both."

The gruffness of Ursa Major should never be likened to that of the Sage of