“Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
  When injur’d Thales bids the town farewell;
  Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend;
  I praise the hermit, but regret the friend: 
  Resolv’d, at length, from vice and London far,
  To breathe, in distant fields, a purer air;
  And, fix’d on Cambria’s solitary shore,
  Give to St. David one true Briton more.”

Johnson, at that time, lodged at Greenwich.  He there fixes the scene, and takes leave of his friend; who, he says in his life, parted from him with tears in his eyes.  The poem, when finished, was offered to Cave.  It happened, however, that the late Mr. Dodsley was the purchaser, at the price of ten guineas.  It was published in 1738; and Pope, we are told, said, “The author, whoever he is, will not be long concealed;” alluding to the passage in Terence, “Ubi, ubi est, diu celari non potest.”  Notwithstanding that prediction, it does not appear that, besides the copy-money, any advantage accrued to the author of a poem, written with the elegance and energy of Pope.  Johnson, in August, 1738, went, with all the fame of his poetry, to offer himself a candidate for the mastership of the school at Appleby, in Leicestershire.  The statutes of the place required, that the person chosen should be a master of arts.  To remove this objection, the then lord Gower was induced to write to a friend, in order to obtain for Johnson a master’s degree in the university of Dublin, by the recommendation of Dr. Swift.  The letter was printed in one of the magazines, and was as follows: 

Sir,—­Mr. Samuel Johnson, author of London, a satire, and some other poetical pieces, is a native of this county, and much respected by some worthy gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who are trustees of a charity-school, now vacant; the certain salary of which is sixty pounds per year, of which they are desirous to make him master; but, unfortunately, he is not capable of receiving their bounty, which would make him happy for life, by not being a master of arts, which, by the statutes of the school, the master of it must be.

Now these gentlemen do me the honour to think, that I have interest enough in you, to prevail upon you to write to dean Swift, to persuade the university of Dublin to send a diploma to me, constituting this poor man master of arts in their university.  They highly extol the man’s learning and probity; and will not be persuaded, that the university will make any difficulty of conferring such a favour upon a stranger, if he is recommended by the dean.  They say, he is not afraid of the strictest examination, though he is of so long a journey; and yet he will venture it, if the dean thinks it necessary, choosing rather to die upon the road, than to be starved to death in translating for booksellers, which has been his only subsistence for some time past.