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was born at Lichfield on September 18, 1709, and died in London on December 13, 1784, in his 76th year. The time of his eminence begins shortly after the middle of the century, and covers about thirty years. Behind him lies the age of Pope and Swift, of Addison and Berkeley. After him comes the age of Wordsworth and Coleridge, of Walter Scott and Byron. In the interval he stands out, if not as the greatest writer, at least as the greatest literary personality.

Nothing about Johnson is more singular than the relation of his writings to his permanent fame. In 1755 he published his Dictionary, after seven years of labour; and was thenceforth regarded as the foremost literary man of his day. He was then only forty-six years of age. Before that time, he had written much, but always under stress of the direst poverty, and much of what he then did was mere hack-work. Among the best productions of this earlier period were his two poems in imitation of Juvenal,—viz. "London," written when he was twenty-nine, and "The Vanity of Human Wishes,"