Though then but
two-and-twenty, I had for several years read his works with delight and
instruction, and had the highest reverence for their authour, which had
grown up in my fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration, by figuring
to myself a state of solemn elevated abstraction, in which I supposed
him to live in the immense metropolis of London. Mr. Gentleman, a native
of Ireland, who passed some years in Scotland as a player, and as an
instructor in the English language, a man whose talents and worth were
depressed by misfortunes, had given me a representation of the figure
and manner of DICTIONARY JOHNSON! as he was then generally called; and
during my first visit to London, which was for three months in 1760, Mr.
Derrick the poet, who was Gentleman's friend and countryman, flattered
me with hopes that he would introduce me to Johnson, an honour of which
I was very ambitious. But he never found an opportunity; which made me
doubt that he had promised to do what was not in his power; till Johnson
some years afterwards told me, 'Derrick, Sir, might very well have
introduced you.
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