the poor lexicographer was condemned to make the most of his solitary shirt, and lie in bed while the linen underwent the unusual but necessary ceremony of ablution. Many years afterwards, when both had attained unexampled celebrity, Johnson rallied Garrick at a dinner-party on their early poverty, and the meanness of the garret they had occupied. Garrick's pride was nettled at so unwelcome a recollection, and he equivocally denied the assertion, "Come, come,' said the surly philosopher to the mortified tragedian,

don't

forget old friends, Davy; thou knowest that we lived in a garret for many months, and that I reached London with three pence in my pocket, whilst thou, Davy, had only three half-pence in thine!"

What a ludicrous sight it must have been, to have suddenly popped upon Johnson, as he stood in a listless attitude at the corner of some blind alley, with Savage, or divers other wits for his companions, to whom he was dictating the precepts of wisdom, and laying hold of their ragged coats in order to insure attention! A contemporary satirist, we forget who it is, has somewhere mentioned, that he was standing with Savage and Johnson in the manner we have described, when a wag came up, and informed the alarmed company, that he had seen an unpleasant-looking gentleman skulking about like a hound in pursuit of a bag fox. The poets instantly decamped, Johnson waddling in the rear, afraid, most probably, of an unseasonable visit to the Bench, and fled to their garrets, with a celerity that set all competition at defiance. What a delicious sight to behold, though but for an instant, the undignified scampering of the grave big-wigged author of the "Rambler," followed by the galloping lankiness of Savage! The famous satirist, Churchill, who, as Lord Byron observes, 46 once blazed the meteor of a season,' was originally bred a clergyman; but whether from disgust to the sacred functions of a priest, or from despair of ever being able to obtain the loaves and fishes, or what is still more probable, from the natural caprice of genius, resigned his profession, and comemnced author and politician. He met with the usual concomitants of literature, and composed his "Rosciad," partly at an obscure tavern, and partly in a garret in a remote quarter of the metropolis. As he was once wandering home drunk to his mean abode, he encountered a woman of the

202 CLASSICAL ASSOCIATIONS CONNECTED WITH GARRETS.

town, who joined him, and seeing his gross inebriety, led him into a field in the neighbourhood of Battersea. On waking in the morning, the poet stretched out his arms with the intention of undrawing the curtains of the bed in which he supposed himself to be, and grasped a bundle of cabbages; to increase, if possible, his surprize, he discovered that he had been deposited on the capacious summit of a dunghill, with a prostitute snoring by his side. His first thought was to tax her with robbery; but, on finding his pocket-book safe, he was so pleased with her unusual fit of honesty, that he gave her twothirds of his possessions, consisting at that time of about fifteen guineas, (an enormous sum for a poet in those days,) and took her to his garret, where she ever afterwards was a welcome visitor.

The celebrated Peter Pindar was notorious for his frequent and facetious allusions to 'garrets, from which, however, his habitual parsimony generally enabled him to escape. When he could find no fault with the productions of an author, it was his common practice to tax him with poverty, and a residence in Grub-street. Indigence was in his estimation on a par with guilt. Pope, in his "Dunciad," has shown himself of the same way of thinking-Par nobile fratrum.

Dr. Paul Hiffernan, a celebrated wit in the time of Johnson, once went to call on his friend Foote, or, as he was justly called, "the English Aristophanes," and without inquiring for his room, ran precipitately up into the garret. Foote, who at that time resided in a less aerial situation, called after him. ""Tis no use," replied Hiffernan, "to show me your room; whoever thought of asking, when every one knows that there never yet was a poet without his garret ?"

The following are two letters that passed between Foote and his mother, who was as witty, intelligent, and eccentric, as her son. One is dated from a miserable garret, the other from prison, where the mother was confined for debt. They are quoted from memory; the exact transcript is to be met with in Cooke's Life of Foote :

DEAR SAM.-I am in prison, and in want of money. Come and assist your loving mother.

DEAR MOTHER,-So am I!

Yours, &c. E. FOOTE. and can't get out again. Yours truly, SAM. FOOTE.

THE CAPTIVE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF LUCIEN BUONAPARTE.

The path of life, throughout, reveals
Unceasing trouble to the tomb;
But truer grief the captive feels

When distant from his native home.

Should sleep his wearied frame o'ertake,
And his lov'd home in dreams appear,
His soul is harrow'd, when awake,
To find that he's no longer there.

When lost in scenes by fancy wrought,
He's cheer'd with prospects yet to come,
His chain recalls his absent thought,
The sweet remembrance of his home.

Should hospitality invite

His anxious mind from grief to roam,
Alas! 'tis but a short delight,

Since distant from his native home.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

I saw his white plume wave in the fight,
And his eager sword in the sun so bright;
I saw his steel armour all red with gore,
That often in battle was red before.

I watch'd his many and noble foes
Sink to the earth from the might of his blows;
He is dead! but with him dies not his glory :
He is dead! but he's left a warlike story!

Those eyes that in battle so flashed with light,
Are dim and sunk low, and his cheek, is white
And that ruby hue from his lips is fled :
The bravest, the noblest, lies with the dead!