The Vanity of Human Wishes
Vanity of Human Wishes, The,a poem by Dr Johnson , published 1749 , in imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal . Less topical than his other long poem, London , it owes its success to its moral seriousness and to its weighty but well-illustrated generalizations. Johnson comments on the vanities of various ambitions—for power, learning, military glory, and beauty—and cites the examples of Wolsey , Clarendon , Laud , and others: the passage on Charles XII of Sweden is perhaps the finest in the poem, ‘quite perfect in form’, according to T. S. Eliot . Johnson's deep religious faith transforms the Stoicism of the original's conclusion: ‘Still raise for good the supplicating voice, | But leave to heav'n the measure and the choice.’ This was the first complete work to which he put his name.
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