She the cannot be doubted; for she was as poor as himself. accepted, with a readiness which did her little honour, addresses of a suitor who might have been her son. The marriage, however, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected. The 5 lover continued to be under the illusions of the weddingday till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and of her manners; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, 10 with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty creature!" 8. His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a house in the neighbourhood of his native town, and ad- 15 vertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away; and only three pupils came to his academy. Indeed, his appearance was so strange, and his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must have resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted grandmother whom he called his 20 Titty well qualified to make provision for the comfort of young gentlemen. David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by mimicking the endearments of this extraordinary pair. 9. At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, determined to seek his fortune in the capital as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of the tragedy of "Irene " in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. 25 30 10. Never, since literature became a calling in England, had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the government. The least that 35 1841. Re-elected to Parlia-11841. Essay on Warren] ment for Edin burgh. Hastings. 1842. Lays of Ancient Rome. 1842. Dr. Arnold died. 1843. Essays on Madame 1843. Southey died. D'Arblay and Addison. 1841. Browning's Pippa 1841. Emerson's Essays, first Passes. Carlyle's Hero Worship. 1842. Tennyson's Poems. series. 1843. Ruskin's Modern 1843. Prescott's Conquest of Painters, vol. i. Dickens's Martin 1844. E. Barrett's (Mrs. Browning's) Poems. Mexico. 1845. Poe's Raven. 1847. Thackeray's Vanity 1847. Longfellow's Evange Fair. Bronto's Jane Kyre. Tennyson's 10. Wordsworth dled. 1860. Tennyson Ing's Nonnets from poet lauryate. the Portugues Nearlet top Wearer and Moore 18. Thackeray's Henry - 1889. Mrowe's Uncle Tom's CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE-MACAULAY.-Concluded. 1855. Tennyson's Maud. 1855. Longfellow's HiawaArnold's poems. tha. 1856. Froude's History of 1856. Motley's Dutch Re Holmes's Autocrat of 1728. Entered Pembroke College, 1728. Goldsmith and Cook born. Oxford. 1732. Usher at Market Bosworth. 1732. Gay died. 1784. Residence at Birmingham. 1735. Marriage. School at Edial. 1735. Rob Roy died. Beattie born. 1737. Removal to London. Irene 1737. Gibbon born. 1727. George II. king. War with Austria and Spain. 1711. Pope's Essay on Criticism. The Spectator. 1712. Pope's Rape of the Lock. 1713. Addison's Cato. 1715. Pope's Iliad. 1717. Pope's Eloisa. Newton's 1719. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Watts's Hymns. 1723. Pope's Odyssey. 1726. Swift's Gulliver's Travels. written. |