Mrs. Johnson had a little money, and so Samuel returned to his native town and there opened a school.  An advertisement appeared in the papers, “At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by Samuel Johnson.”  But Johnson was quite unfitted to be a teacher, and the school did not prosper.  “His schoolroom,” says another writer, “must have resembled an ogre’s den,” and only two or three boys came to it.  Among them was David Garrick, who afterwards became a famous actor and amused the world by imitating his friend and old schoolmaster, the great Sam, as well as his elderly wife.

After struggling with his school for more than a year, Johnson resolved to give it up and go to London, there to seek his fortune.  Leaving his wife at Lichfield, he set off with his friend and pupil David Garrick, as he afterwards said, “With twopence halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three halfpence in thine.”

The days of the later Stuarts and the first of the Georges were the great days of patronage.  When a writer of genius appeared, noblemen and others, who were powerful and wealthy, were eager to become his patron, and have his books dedicated to them.  So although the dunces among writers remained terribly poor, almost every man of genius was sure of a comfortable life.  But although he gained this by his writing, it was not because the people liked his books, but because one man liked them or was eager to have his name upon them, and therefore became his patron.  The patron, then, either himself helped his pet writer, or got for him some government employment.  After a time this fashion ceased, and instead of taking his book to a patron, a writer took it to a bookseller, and sold it to him for as much money as he could.  And so began the modern way of publishing books.

But when Johnson came to London to try his fortune as a writer, it was just the time between.  The patron had not quite vanished, the bookseller had not yet taken his place.  Never had writing been more badly paid, never had it been more difficult to make a living by it.  “The trade of author was at about one of its lowest ebbs when Johnson embarked on it."*

Carlyle.

Johnson had brought with him to London a tragedy more than half written, but when he took it to the booksellers they showed no eagerness to publish it, or indeed anything else that he might write.  Looking at him they saw no genius, but only a huge and uncouth country youth.  One bookseller, seeing his great body, advised him rather to try his luck as a porter than as a writer.  But, in spite of rebuffs and disappointments, Johnson would not give in.  When he had money enough he lived in mean lodgings, when he had none, hungry, ragged, and cold, he roamed about the streets, making friends with other strange, forlorn men of genius, and sharing their miseries.

But if Johnson starved he never cringed, and once when a bookseller spoke rudely to him he knocked him down with one of his own books.  A beggar or not, Johnson demanded the respect due to a man.  At school and college he had dominated his fellows, he dominated now.  But the need of fighting for respect made him rough.  And ever after his manner with friend and foe alike was rude and brusque.