“Let observation with extensive view,
Survey mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;”
These are the opening lines of the poem The Vanity of Human Wishes by Samuel Johnson. The poet in these lines gives a general view of the uncertainty of fate, and man’s tendency to fix his desires on ambitions that will led him to disaster.
“Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,
Where wav'ring man, betray'd by vent'rous pride
To tread the dreary paths without a guide.”
Samuel Johnson reflects on how human beings are incapable of seeing what their destiny is, as life is a ‘clouded maze,’ and their own natural passions (hope, fear, etc.), add snares or traps for them to fall into venturous pride which refers to man’s rash self-sufficiency that deludes him into thinking he can pass through life without reliance on a guide, like reason.
“Tho' Grief and Fondness in my Breast rebel,
When injur'd Thales bids the Town farewell,
Yet still my calmer Thoughts his Choice commend,
I praise the Hermit, but regret the Friend,
Resolved at length, from Vice and London far,
To breathe in distant Fields a purer Air,
And, fix'd on Cambria's solitary shore,
Give to St. David one true Briton more.”
These are the opening lines of the poem London by Samuel Johnson. The poet, here, is bidding farewell to his friend who is leaving London. He is sad to see his friend going away but the poet has this consolation that his friend’s retreat to St. David in Wales will keep his friend away from the vices and corruption of the city of London.
