Sam Johnson – The “Robust Genius” of British Toryism

by Derek Turner (May 2011)

Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay.

And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.

Here falling houses thunder on your head,

Prepare for death if by night here you roam

All quotations are from the Life, except those indicated in the text and

2. Rasselas
4. Johnson on Johnson, edited by John Wain, J M Dent and Sons, 1976
Principal works:

1733 Voyage to Abyssinia
1738 London
1739 Marmor Nolfolscience and A Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage
1744 Life of Savage
1749 Vanity of Human Wishes
1750 Commences Rambler
1752 Concludes Rambler
1754 Life of Cave
1755 Dictionary
1757 A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil
1758 Commences Idler
1759 Rasselas
1765 Annotated Shakespeare
1774 The Patriot
1775 A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Taxation No Tyranny
1775 Commences Lives of the Poets
1781 Concludes Lives of the Poets

(Derek Turner is the editor of Quarterly Review.)

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