Excerpt from Johnson's Lives of the the English Poets: Abridged With Notes and Illustrations It was in the yearol'l'b'l that Johnfon left the uni verfity without a degree and as his father, who died in the month of December of that year, had fufiitred great misfortunes in trade, he wasdriven out a com-i moner of nature, and excluded from the regular modes of profit and profperity. Havin therefore not only a profefiion, but the means of fuififience to feck, he accepted, in the month of March 1732, an invitation to the oflice of under-mailer of a free fchoolat Mar ket Bofworth in Leicefierlhire: but not knowing, as he laid, whether it was more difagreeable for him to teach or for the boys to learn the. Grammar-rules, and being likewife difgufted at'the treatment which he re ceived from the patron of the fchool, he relinquifhed in a few months a fituation which he ever afterwards recolleéted with horror. Being thus a ain without any fixed employment, and with very litge money in his pocket, he tranflated Lobo's voyage to Abyllinia, for the trifling fum, it is faid, of five guineas, which be re ceived from a bookfeller in Birmingham. This was the firft attempt which it is certain he made to pro cure pecunia allifiance by means of his pen; and it mull: have he (1 forth very little encouragement to his commencing author by profeffion.