CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF JOHNSON'S LIFE 1709. Born at Lichfield, September 18: 1728-9. Pembroke College, Oxford. Conversion. 1729-35. No settled employment; teaches at Bosworth and Edial. 1735. Marries Mrs. Porter. 1737. Visits London with Garrick; settles there. 1738. Begins contributing to Cave's Gentleman's Magazine. London. 1740-43. Reports Parliamentary debates for Cave. 1744. Life of Savage. 1747. Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre; Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language. 1747-55. Writes the Dictionary. 1748. Vanity of Human Wishes; Irene acted. 1750-52. Rambler. 1752. Death of his wife. Meets Reynolds. 1753. Adventurer. 1754. First visit to Oxford since his student days. 1755. Letter to Chesterfield; Dictionary published. Meets Langton. 1756-7. Writes for Literary Magazine; begins edition of Shakespeare. 1758-60. Idler. 1758. Gets to know Burney. 1759. Death of his mother; Rasselas. First meets Goldsmith. Robert Burns born. 1762. Receives pension. 1763. First meets Boswell. 1764. Literary Club founded. 1764 or 1765. First knows the Thrales. 1765. Shakespeare published. 1767. Interview with George III. 1770. False Alarm published. Wordsworth born. Falkland's Islands. Walter Scott born. 1771. 1773. Travels in Scotland and the Hebrides. 1774. Journey to the Western Islands; The Patriot. Death of Goldsmith. 1775. Taxation no Tyranny. Made LL.D. at Oxford. Travels in France. 1777-81. Lives of the Poets. 1779. Death of Garrick. 1781. Death of Thrale. 1782. Death of Levett. 1783. Suffers a stroke of paralysis. 1784. Long illness and partial recovery. Mrs. Thrale marries Piozzi. Death, December 13. PREFATORY NOTE ON LONDON Johnson's London was written in 1738, before he was twenty-nine. He had first come to town the preceding year, and meanwhile had nearly starved as an obscure hack-writer in the service of Cave and his Gentleman's Magazine. London helped him to emerge from this obscurity. Johnson wrote it rapidly, and offered it to Cave as the work of a man whose name he would not give. 'I cannot help taking notice,' he wrote, that besides what the author may hope for on account of his abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, as he lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances of fortune.' The poem was finally sold with all rights for ten guineas -neither a high nor a low price for the times. It was published anonymously on the same day as Pope's 1738, and promptly made a sensation in the literary world of London. It reached a second edition within a week. Pope said of the unknown poet: 'He will soon be deterré.' He learned Johnson's name, and took part in an unsuccessful attempt to get him the degree of Master of Arts from Dublin. As an imitation of Juvenal it follows the details of the original more closely than The Vanity of Human Wishes; many a line is a bit of brilliant translation. But too close an imitation has led the poet sometimes to describe a state of things more true of Rome than of London. The poem is rather a brilliant academic performance than a serious satire, yet it expresses with much vigor, Johnson's hatred of insincerity and servile meanness, and his sense of public danger which lies in forgetting the simplicity and ideals of an earlier period in England. On the other hand, some of the sentiments seem quite unJohnsonian. He suspects the government, and fears tyr |