remained during about five years in the midland counties. At
Lichfield, his birthplace and his early home, he had inherited
some friends and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry
Hervey, a gay officer of noble family, who happened to be
quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the
ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished
parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, did himself honour
by patronising the young adventurer, whose repulsive person,
unpolished manners, and squalid garb moved many of the petty
aristocracy of the neighbourhood to laughter or to disgust. At
Lichfield, however, Johnson could find no way of earning a
livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school in
Leicestershire; he resided as a humble companion in the house of
a country gentleman; but a life of dependence was insupportable
to his haughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, and there
earned a few guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he
printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long
forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. He then put forth
proposals for publishing by subscription the poems of Politian,
with notes containing a history of modern Latin verse: but
subscriptions did not come in; and the volume never appeared.

While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in
love. The object of his passion was Mrs Elizabeth Porter, a
widow who had children as old as himself. To ordinary
spectators, the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse woman,
painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colours, and fond of
exhibiting provincial airs and graces which were not exactly
those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, however, whose
passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish