Samuel Johnson
- LONDON! the needy Villain's gen'ral Home,
- The Common Shore of Paris and of Rome;
- With eager Thirst, by Folly or by Fate,
- Sucks in the Dregs of each corrupted State.
- Forgive my Transports on a Theme like this,
- I cannot bear a French metropolis.
Samuel Johnson (September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784) went in 1737 to London to seek his fortune, and found employment as a writer for various periodicals, writing book reviews and derivative biographies. Johnson obtained some notice with his works London (1738) and The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) - both of which are considered great poems - but his efforts in the 1750's are part of why he's considered a titan. This decade saw the creation of his Dictionary (1755), for which he is probably most famous, his Rambler essays (1750-52), his Idler essays (1758-60), and Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759). Johnson's output includes far more than just his output of the 1750's; it also includes a complete edition of Shakespeare; a number of frequently cited political tracts; sermons; a description of his 1773 tour to Scotland with Boswell, with considerable discussion of the change of an era; and a series of biographies of numerous British poets (The Lives of the Poets), commissioned to accompany reprints of each poet's works.
(Condensed from the brief biography of Johnson at http://www.samueljohnson.com/ )