Today, September 18th, is the 313th birthday (by the Gregorian calendar) of the great English lexicographer, essayist, and pessimist Samuel Johnson.

I urge VDARE.com readers to commemorate the event by reading Johnson’s long poem The Vanity of Human Wishes. I have posted an annotated version on my personal website with audio of me reading the poem. 

From Jeffrey Meyers’ 2008 book Samuel Johnson: The Struggle:

Johnson’s title originates in the dire motto of Ecclesiastes 1:2: ”Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,” a word he defined in the Dictionary as ”uncertainty,"  ”fruitless desire”  and ”falsehood.” … His poem is not simply pessimistic, but strains against optimism, against the possibility that human life could actually get better.

What’s not to like?