al couplets and sometimes
classical subject matter, but the didactic parts of his poems are the
poorest. His greatest successes, such as the pictures of the village
preacher and the schoolmaster in _The Deserted Village_ and of Dr.
Primrose and his family in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, show the warm
human sympathy of the romantic school.

The qualities for which he is most noted are (1) a sane and saving
altruistic philosophy of life, pervaded with rare humor, and (2) a
style of remarkable ease, grace, and clearness, expressed in copious
and apt language.

_She Stoops to Conquer_ marks a change in the drama of the time,
because, in Dobson's phrase, it bade "good-bye to sham Sentiment."

"...this play it appears
Dealt largely in laughter and nothing in tears."

SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784

[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds_.]

[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE. _From an old print_.]

Early Struggles.--Michael Johnson, an intelligent bookseller in
Lichfield, Staffordshire, was in 1709 blessed with a son who was to
occupy a unique position in literature, a position gained not so much
by his writings as by his spoken words and great personality.

Samuel was prepared for Oxford at various schools and in the paternal
bookstore, where he read widely and voraciously, but without much
system. He said that at the age of eighteen, the year before he
entered Oxford, he knew almost as much as at fifty-three. Poverty kept
him from remaining at Oxford long enough to take a degree. He left the
university, and, for more than a quarter of a century, struggled
doggedly against poverty. When he was twenty-five, he married a widow
of forty-eight. With the money which she brought him, he opened a
private school, but failed. He never had more than eight pupils, one
of whom was the actor, David Garrick.

In 1737 Johnson went to London and sought employment as a hack writer.
Sometimes he had no money with which to hire a lodging, and was
compelled to walk the streets all night to keep warm. Johnson reached
London in the very darkest days for struggling authors, who were often
subjected to the greatest hardships. They were the objects of general
contempt, to which Pope's _Dunciad_ had largely contributed.

During this period Johnson did much hack work for the _Gentleman's
Magazine_. He was also the author of two satirical poems, _London_
(1738) and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749),