IT remains to speak of Johnson's position in literature.
For reasons sufficiently obvious, few men whose lives
have been devoted to letters for an equal period, have left
behind them such scanty and inadequate remains. John-
son, as we have seen, worked only under the pressure of
circumstances; a very small proportion of his latter life
was devoted to literary employment. The working hours
of his earlier years were spent for the most part in pro-
ductions which can hardly be called literary. Seven
years were devoted to the Dictionary, which, whatever its
merits, could be a book only in the material sense of the
word, and was of course destined to be soon superseded.
Much of his hack-work has doubtless passed into oblivion,
and though the ordinary relic-worship has gathered
together fragments enough to fill twelve decent octavo
volumes (to which may be added the two volumes of
parliamentary reports), the part which can be called alive
may be compressed into very moderate compass. Johnson
may be considered as a poet, an essayist, a pamphleteer,
a traveller, a critic, and a biographer. Among his
poems, the two imitations of Juvenal, especially the
Vanity of Human Wishes, and a minor fragment or two,
probably deserve more respect than would be conceded

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