including Homer, Goethe, Dante, and the Italian trecentists, especially Petrarch and Boccaccio. He also read contemporary Romantic poets, and he was fired from a teaching post at Klinkowström's Jesuit institute for having lent a booklet of banned poetry to his friend Anastasius Grün. Later life After acquiring a law degree in 1828, he returned to Ljubljana, where he was employed as an assistant in the firm of the lawyer Leopold Baumgartner. He constantly strove to become an independent lawyer, filing as many as six applications, but he was not successful. In 1832, he briefly moved to Klagenfurt in the hope of furthering his career, but returned to Ljubljana after less than a year. In the spring of 1833, he met Julija Primic, the daughter of a rich merchant, who would become the unfulfilled love of his life. In 1833, he became a member of the Ljubljana high society's social club, called the Casino Society (, ), and met Julija in 1834 and 1835 at the theatre and at the dances in Kazina, but did not have the courage to directly show her his feelings towards her. In 1834, he began working as an assistant to his friend Blaž Crobath, who gave Prešeren enough free time to engage in his literary activities. In the same year, he met the Czech romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha and the Slovene-born Croatian poet Stanko Vraz and had long and fruitful discussions on poetry with them. Around 1836, Prešeren finally realized that his love for Julija would never become mutual (she had married another man the previous year). The same year, he met Ana Jelovšek, with whom he entered into a permanent relationship. They had three children, but never married. Prešeren supported Ana financially and treated her as his rightful mate, but engaged in several other love affairs at the same time. He also spent a lot of time travelling throughout Carniola, especially to Lake Bled, from the scenery of which he drew inspiration for his poems. In 1846, Prešeren was finally allowed to open his own law firm and moved to Kranj with his family. He died there on 8 February 1849. Upon his deathbed he confessed that he had never forgotten Julija. Work Early years Prešeren's first serious poetic attempts date from his student years in Vienna. In 1824, he wrote some of his most popular poems, still under the influence of Valentin