Young Sam Johnson

This collection of poems, primarily written by John Husbands (1706-1732), is most notable for containing the first appearance in print of a work by Samuel Johnson. "Messia," a Latin translation of Alexander Pope’s "Messiah," was written in 1728 as a Christmas vacation assignment for his tutor at Pembroke College, Oxford, William Jorden (1685-1739), who then passed it on to his Pembroke colleague, Husbands. Although Johnson was just nineteen when he wrote it, he remained sufficiently pleased with "Messia" to republish it with minor revisions in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1752.