User:Vt100/sandbox

Early life
He was born at 25 Great Queen Street, Bloomsbury, in the house of his great aunt, Mary Ann Payne, who had adopted his father John Edward Hawkins-Payne. His father was descended from Sir John Hawkins, the Elizabethan admiral, and Hawkins-Payne boasted that their ancestors had at one time lived in opulence at Rockbeare, near Exeter, Devon. His mother, Betsy, was the daughter of William Rogers, a wealthy merchant who lived in Bristol. John was the eldest of six children; three daughters and three sons.

Payne was educated at a school kept by Ebenezer Pearce in Westbourne Park, along with Charles Leigh Lewes, son of George Henry Lewes. However, his father's failure in business led to Payne being removed from school at age thirteen, and the family moved to Bristol where Hawkins-Payne was being set up in a dry-saltery business acquired for him by William Rogers.

In 1902, when Payne wrote his autobiography, he characterised his father's actions as deliberately designed to thwart his literary ambitions, calling him a "Philistine ... in all matters of art and letters; thinking nothing of any value that would not bake bread". In his early teens, he had already made translations of poems from a dozen or so other languages, but he now took on a succession of jobs "distressing to the nervous and shrinking nature of a perhaps morbidly shy and retiring lad" before moving back to London at the age of nineteen to work in a solicitor's office.

Literary circle
While serving his articles in London, Payne renewed his friendship with Charles Leigh Lewes, son of George Henry Lewes, and often spent time at the house of George Lewes and his partner, George Eliot, and was introduced to Harry Buxton Forman, the Keats and Shelley enthusiast.

He also formed friendships with John Trivett Nettleship and Arthur O'Shaughnessy, and the three became known as "The Triumvirate".

Legal career
After serving his five years' articles, Payne became a solicitor in 1867, and partnered with Edmund Newman in the firm of Newman and Payne, a partnership which lasted until 1875.