The Vanity of Human Wishes

[6] Johnson's London is concerned primarily with political issues, especially those surrounding the Walpole administration, but The Vanity of Human Wishes focuses on overarching philosophical concepts.

"[16] The opening lines announce the universal scope of the poem, as well as its central theme that "the antidote to vain human wishes is non-vain spiritual wishes":[17] Let Observation with extensive View,Survey Mankind from China to Peru;Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife,And watch the busy scenes of crouded Life;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;As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude,Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good.

(Lines 1–10)[18]Later, Johnson describes the life of a scholar: Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,Nor claim the triumph of a letter'd heart; Should no Disease thy torpid veins invade, Nor Melancholy's phantoms haunt thy Shade; Yet hope not Life from Grief or Danger free, Nor think the doom of Man revrs'd for thee: Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from Letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the Scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, Want, the Patron and the Jayl (Lines 151–160)[15]Johnson draws on personal experience as well as a variety of historical sources to illustrate "the helpless vulnerability of the individual before the social context" and the "inevitable self-deception by which human beings are led astray".

As Howard D. Weinbrot notes, "The passage skillfully includes many of Johnson's familiar themes – repulsion with slaughter that aggrandizes one man and kills and impoverishes thousands, understanding of the human need to glorify heroes, and subtle contrast with the classical parent-poem and its inadequate moral vision.

"[20] Johnson depicts Charles as a "Soul of Fire", the "Unconquer'd Lord of Pleasure and of Pain", who refuses to accept that his pursuit of military conquest may end in disaster: 'Think Nothing gain'd, he cries, till nought remain,On Moscow's Walls till Gothic Standards fly,And all be Mine beneath the Polar Sky.

'(Lines 202–204)[21]In a famous passage, Johnson reduces the king's military career to a cautionary example in a poem: His Fall was destin'd to a barren Strand,A petty Fortress, and a dubious Hand;He left the Name, at which the World grew pale,To point a Moral, or adorn a Tale.

[24] Howard D. Weinbrot notes that The Vanity of Human Wishes "follows the outline of Juvenal's tenth satire, embraces some of what Johnson thought of as its 'sublimity,' but also uses it as a touchstone rather than an argument on authority."

In order not to violate his prototype, Johnson had to accommodate his views to the Roman model and focus on the human world, approaching religion "by a negative path" and ignoring the "positive motives of faith, such as the love of Christ".

[27] Later critics followed the same trend: Howard D. Weinbrot says that "London is well worth reading, but The Vanity of Human Wishes is one of the great poems in the English language".