privations must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a
name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for
employment measured with a scornful eye that athletic though
uncouth frame, and exclaimed, "You had better get a porter's
knot, and carry trunks." Nor was the advice bad; for a porter
was likely to be as plentifully fed, and as comfortably lodged,
as a poet.

Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form
any literary connection from which he could expect more than
bread for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot
the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London,
relieved his wants during this time of trial. "Harry Hervey,"
said the old philosopher many years later, "was a vicious man;
but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey I shall
love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts
which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he
dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny worth of meat,
and a pennyworth of bread, at an alehouse near Drury Lane.

The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at
this time was discernible to the last in his temper and his
deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now became
almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing
shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven.
Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he
contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to
the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the
sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of
prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries