Mr. Johnson, her publisher, between whom and herself there now commenced
an intimate friendship. She had seen him upon occasion of publishing
her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and she addressed two or
three letters to him during her residence in Ireland. Upon her arrival
in London in August 1787, she went immediately to his house, and frankly
explained to him her purpose, at the same time requesting his advice and
assistance as to its execution. After a short conversation, Mr. Johnson
invited her to make his house her home, till she should have suited
herself with a fixed residence. She accordingly resided at this time two
or three weeks under his roof. At the same period she paid a visit or
two of similar duration to some friends, at no great distance from the
metropolis.

At Michaelmas 1787, she entered upon a house in George street, on the
Surry side of Black Friar's Bridge, which Mr. Johnson had provided for
her during her excursion into the country. The three years immediately
ensuing, may be said, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, to have
been the most active period of her life. She brought with her to this
habitation, the novel of Mary, which had not yet been sent to the press,
and the commencement of a sort of oriental tale, entitled, the Cave of
Fancy, which she thought proper afterwards to lay aside unfinished. I am
told that at this period she appeared under great dejection of spirits,
and filled with melancholy regret for the loss of her youthful friend. A
period of two years had elapsed since the death of that friend; but it
was possibly the composition of the fiction of Mary, that renewed her
sorrows in their original force. Soon after entering upon her new
habitation, she produced a little work, entitled, Original Stories from
Real Life, intended for the use of children. At the commencement of her
literary carreer, she is said to have conceived a vehement aversion to
the being regarded, by her ordinary acquaintance, in the character of an