Samuel Johnson stands as one of the most imposing and fascinating figures in the history of English literature, a man whose physical bulk was matched only by the magnitude of his intellectual achievements and the breadth of his influence on the language itself. Born on September 18, 1709, in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and dying in London on December 13, 1784, Johnson's seventy-five years encompassed a journey from pro…
“Fear is a passion which every man feels so frequently predominant in his own breast, that he is unwilling to hear it censured with great asperity.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Devotional Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Despair
John Scott of Amwell, born on 9 January 1730 and dead on 12 December 1783, occupied a distinctive if now comparatively quiet place in eighteenth-century English letters. He was a poet, critic, landscape gardener, social commentator, practical administrator, and committed Quaker whose life joined literary aspiration to civic usefulness. In his own day he was known not simply as John Scott but as “Scott of Amwell,” a n…
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Joy, Peace
