Learn about The life of Samuel Johnson, who compiled the dictionary, at his museum, not to be confused with Shakespeare's buddy Ben Jonson

 

Samuel Johnson (1775) showing his intense concentration and the weakness of his eyes; he did not want to be depicted as "Blinking Sam." This unique portrait showing his nearsightedness is in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, USA.

Samuel Johnson's birthplace Museum which you can visit in Lichfield, England.

Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 [OS 7 September] – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson.

Johnson's travelling companion and biographer, Boswell.

I always used to muddle up the two Jonsons and their spelling but now I have got it clear. Samuel Johnson has the longer first name and family name. As befits the writer of a dictionary. 

But Ben Jonson, who lived earlier, at the time of Shakespeare, shortened the name Benjamin to Ben and abbreviated his surname to Jonson,  and was a humorous playwright. After Shakespeare Ben was second most popular with the general public as well as influential on other writers during the reign of James !. (James united England and Scotland, hence the union Jack flag, after the deaths of childless Protestant Elizabeth I and his mother Catholic Mary Queen of Scots.

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637^[2]) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's  exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour^[3] (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "

He wrote, to Celia:

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.

Useful Websites

Three things worth going to see in Lichfield: the Birthplace Museum of Johnson, the statue of biographer Boswell, the Darwin museum - and three spires cathedral

Samuel Johnson.

What an extraordinary life he led. He was in and out of debt all his life. He married an older woman who was widowed, a wealthy woman. (Like Disraeli did later.) He loved Lichfield but left for London and travelled.He was not the first or the only person to compile a dictionary.

he famously said:

He who is tired of London is tired of life.

• The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
• A Review of Soame Jenyns' A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil, published in the first volume of Miscellaneous and Fugitive Pieces (London, 1774), p. 23
• He who praises everybody praises nobody.
• Johnson's Works (1787), vol. XI, p. 216; This set included the Life of Samuel Johnson by Sir John Hawkins
• I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
• Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 6, edited by George Birkbeck Hill
• A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.
• Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 11, edited by George Birkbeck Hill
• . Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
• Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.
  • Chapter 6
• To a poet nothing can be useless.
• Chapter 10
• No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
• March 1759, p. 97
• It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. 
• Hell is paved with good intentions.
  • April 14, 1775
  • I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
  • It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.
    • May 1, 1783, p. 513

Attributed to him after he died:

What are the landmarks and places to visit in Lichfield? 

1 The highest is the triple spires of the Cathedral. 

2 The first landmark find and see is the statue of Boswell.

3 My top attraction is the museum of Samuel Johnson who compiled the dictionary in 1755. Johnson is also famous for two quotations.

He who is tired of London is tired of life.

Worth seeing, but not worth going to see.

But there is a fourth must see museum. Darwin, grandfather of Charles

Just 6 miles outside the city is the National Arboretum, but full of statues and memorials to people and places from various wars.

 Useful Websites

https://www.visitlichfield.co.uk/attractions/samuel-johnson-birthplace-museum

Virtual tour of the Museum

https://www.samueljohnsonbirthplace.org.uk/Virtual_Tour_6133.aspx

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson

National Memorial Arboretum

https://www.thenma.org.uk/visit-us/what's-here/the-memorials/list-of-memorials