The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in Eighteen Volumes (1907–21).
Volume X. The Age of Johnson.

Table of Principal Dates.



1641 Henry Dodwell born (d. 1711).
1657 William Wake born (d. 1737).
1663 Francis Atterbury born (d. 1732).
1663 Thomas Wilson, bp. of Sodor and Man born (d. 1755).
1667? Susannah Centlivre born (d. 1723).
1674 Isaac Watts born (d. 1748).
1675 William Somerville born (d. 1742).
1676 Benjamin Hoadly born (d. 1761).
1678 Simon Ockley born (d. 1720).
1678 Thomas Sherlock born (d. 1761).
1683 Conyers Middleton born (d. 1750).
1683 Daniel Waterland born (d. 1740).
1683 Edward Young born (d. 1765).
1685 Aaron Hill born (d. 1750).
1686 Thomas Carte born (d. 1754).
1688? Thomas Warton the elder born (d. 1745).
1689 Samuel Richardson born (d. 1761).
1692 Joseph Butler born (d. 1752).
1693 George Lillo born (d. 1739).
1696 Matthew Green born (d. 1737).
1699 Robert Blair born (d. 1746).
1700 Death of Dryden.
1700 James Thomson born (d. 1748).
1700? John Dyer born (d. 1758).
1702 Philip Doddridge born (d. 1751).
1703 John Wesley born (d. 1791).
1703? Henry Brooke born (d. 1783).
1705 Abraham Tucker born (d. 1774).
1707 Henry Fielding born (d. 1754).
1707 Charles Wesley born (d. 1788).
1708 Ockley’s History of the Saracens begins to appear (completed 1757).
1709 John Armstrong born (d. 1779).
1709 Samuel Johnson born (d. 1784).
1709 George, Lord Lyttelton born (d. 1773).
1709 Mrs. Centlivre’s The Busy Body.
1709 First Copyright Act passed.
1710 Thomas Reid born (d. 1796).
1711 David Hume born (d. 1776).
1712 Richard Glover born (d. 1785).
1712 Edward Moore born (d. 1757).
1713 Laurence Sterne born (d. 1768).
1714 James Hervey born (d. 1758).
1714 William Shenstone born (d. 1763).
1714 George Whitefield born (d. 1770).
1714–27 George I.
1715 Richard Graves born (d. 1804).
1715 Richard Jago born (d. 1781).
1715 William Whitehead born (d. 1785).
1716 Thomas Gray born (d. 1771).
1717 David Garrick born (d. 1779).
1717 Horace Walpole born (d. 1797).
1717–20 The Bangorian Controversy.
1719 Death of Addison.
1719 Edward Young’s Busiris.
1720 Samuel Foote born (d. 1777).
1720 Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu born (d. 1800).
1720 Gilbert White born (d. 1793).
1721 Mark Akenside born (d. 1770).
1721 William Collins born (d. 1759).
1721 William Robertson born (d. 1793).
1721 Tobias Smollett born (d. 1771)
1722 John Home born (d. 1808).
1722 Thomas Leland born (d. 1785).
1722 Christopher Smart born (d. 1771).
1722 Joseph Warton born (d. 1800) 1723 Richard Price born (d. 1791).
1723 Sir Joshua Reynolds born (d. 1792).
1723 Adam Smith born (d. 1790).
1726 Law’s Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage Entertainment fully demonstrated.
1726 Thomson’s Winter.
1727 Arthur Murphy born (d. 1805).
1727 John Wilkes born (d. 1797).
1727 Death of Newton.
1727 Dyer’s Grongar Hill.
1727 Thomson’s Summer.
1727–60 George II.
1728 Oliver Goldsmith born (d. 1774).
1728 Thomas Warton the Younger born (d. 1790).
1728 Fielding’s Love in Several Masques.
1728 Gay’s Beggar’s Opera.
1728 Thomson’s Spring.
1729 John William Fletcher (of Madeley) born (d. 1785).
1729 Thomas Percy born (d. 1811).
1729 Clara Reeve born (d. 1807).
1729 Thomson’s Sophonisba.
1730 Fielding’s Tom Thumb.
1730 Thomson’s Seasons (including Autumn).
1731 Charles Churchill born (d. 1764).
1731 Death of Defoe.
1731 The Gentleman’s Magazine first appears.
1731 Lillo’s London Merchant.
1732 George Colman born (d. 1794).
1732 William Falconer born (d. 1769).
1732 David Hartley born (d. 1813).
1733 Joseph Priestley born (d. 1804).
1734 Henry Carey’s Chrononhotonthologos.
1735 James Beattie born (d. 1803).
1735 Somervile’s The Chace.
1736 James Macpherson born (d. 1796).
1736 Butler’s Analogy.
1736 Fielding’s Pasquin.
1736 Aaron Hill’s Zara.
1736 Lillo’s Fatal Curiosity.
1737 Death of Queen Caroline.
1737 Edward Gibbon born (d. 1794.)
1737 Fielding’s The Historical Register for 1736.
1737 Green’s The Spleen.
1738 Johnson’s London.
1739 Hugh Kelly born (d. 1777).
1739 War declared against Spain.
1739–40 Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature.
1740 James Boswell born (d. 1795).
1740 Sir Philip Francis born (d. 1818).
1740–1 Richardson’s Pamela.
1741 Middleton’s Life of Cicero.
1741 Resignation of Walpole.
1742 Battle of Dettingen.
1742 Fielding’s Joseph Andrews.
1742–5 Young’s Night Thoughts.
1743 William Paley born (d. 1805).
1743 Blair’s The Grave.
1743 Fielding’s Miscellanies.
1744 William Mitford born (d. 1827).
1744 Pope died.
1744 Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination.
1744 Armstrong’s Art of preserving health.
1744 Sarah Fielding’s David Simple.
1744 Johnson’s Life of Savage.
1745 Henry Mackenzie born (d. 1831).
1745 Hannah More born (d. 1833).
1745 Death of Swift.
1745–6 Jacobite Rebellion.
1746–7 Hervey’s Meditations.
1747 Collins’s Odes.
1747 Gray’s Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College.
1747 John Hoadly’s Suspicious Husband.
1747 Lyttelton’s Monody.
1747–8 Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe.
1747–55 Carte’s History of England.
1748 Hume’s Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding.
1748 Smollett’s Roderick Random.
1748 Thomson’s Castle of Indolence.
1749 Fielding’s Tom Jones.
1749 David Hartley’s Observations on Man. 1749 Johnson’s Vanity of Human Wishes and Irene.
1750 First number of The Rambler, 20 March. (Last, 14 March, 1752).
1750 Fielding’s Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers.
1750 Whitehead’s The Roman Father.
1751 Sheridan born (d. 1816).
1751 Fielding’s Amelia.
1751 Gray’s Elegy.
1751 Hume’s Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.
1751 Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle.
1752 Frances Burney (Mme. d'Arblay) born (d. 1840).
1752 Thomas Chatterton born (d. 1770).
1752 Joseph Ritson born (d. 1803).
1752 Smollett’s Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom.
1753 Edward Moore’s The Gamester.
1753–4 Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison.
1754–61 Hume’s History of Great Britain.
1755 Fielding’s Voyage to Lisbon.
1755 Johnson’s Dictionary.
1755 Shebbeare’s Letters to the People of England begin.
1755 The Monitor established.
1756 Home’s Douglas.
1757–60 The great years of Pitt.
1757 Battle of Plassey.
1757 The Strawberry Hill Press opened.
1757 Gray’s Odes.
1757 Price’s Review of the principal questions in Morals.
1757–8 Smollett’s History of England.
1758 H. S. Woodfall assumes control of The Public Advertiser.
1758–60 Johnson’s Idler.
1759 Battle of Minden. Capture of Quebec.
1759 Johnson’s Rasselas.
1759 Robertson’s History of Scotland.
1759 Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.
1760 Lyttelton’s Dialogues of the Dead.
1760 Macpherson’s Fragments of Ancient Poetry.
1760 Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse.
1760–7 Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.
1760–1820 George III.
1761 Churchill’s The Rosciad and The Apology.
1761 Colman’s The Jealous Wife.
1761 Diderot’s Éloge de Richardson.
1761 Resignation of Pitt. Bute at the head of affairs.
1762 Isaac Bickerstaff’s Love in a Village.
1762 Falconer’s The Shipwreck.
1762 Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World.
1762 Macpherson’s Fingal.
1762 Smollett’s Sir Launcelot Greaves.
1762 Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting in England.
1763 No. 45 of The North Briton appears.
1763–5 Continuation of Smollett’s History of England.
1763 Macpherson’s Temora.
1763 Percy’s Five Pieces of Runic Poetry.
1763 Resignation of Bute.
1763 Smart’s Song to David.
1764 Goldsmith’s The Traveller.
1764 Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind.
1764 Shenstone’s Works in Prose and Verse.
1764 Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto.
1764 The Candor pamphlets.
1765 The Stamp Act.
1765 Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare.
1765 Percy’s Reliques.
1765 Tucker’s Light of Nature pursued, Vols. IIV. (Completed 1778).
1766 Colman’s Clandestine Marriage.
1766 Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield.
1766 Repeal of the Stamp Act. The Chatham Ministry.
1766 Smollett’s Travels through France and Italy.
1766–70 Henry Brooke’s The Fool of Quality. 1768 Goldsmith’s The Good-Natur'd Man.
1768 Gray’s Poems.
1768 Kelly’s False Delicacy.
1768 Priestley’s Essay on the first principles of Government.
1768 Resignation of Chatham.
1768 Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.
1768 Horace Walpole’s Historic Doubts.
1769 The Letters of Junius begin to appear in The Public Advertiser.
1769 Reynolds’s first Discourse.
1769 Robertson’s History of Charles V.
1769 Smollett’s History and Adventures of an Atom.
1769 Wilkes expelled from the House.
1770 Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.
1771 Goldsmith’s History of England.
1771 Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling.
1771 Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker.
1771 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Edn. I.
1771–4 Beattie’s The Minstrel.
1772 Graves’s Spiritual Quixote.
1772 The Letters of Junius collected.
1773 Goldsmith’s She stoops to conquer.
1773 Leland’s History of Ireland.
1773 Mackenzie’s Man of the World.
1773 The Boston Tea Riots.
1774 Chesterfield’s Letters to his Son.
1774–81 Warton’s History of English Poetry.
1775 Charles Lamb born (d. 1834).
1775 Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
1775–8 Tyrwhitt’s edition of Chaucer published.
1776 American Declaration of Independence.
1776 Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I. (Vols. II, III, 1781; Vols. IVVI, 1788.)
1776 Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
1777 Chatterton’s Rowley Poems published.
1777 Mackenzie’s Julia de Roubigné.
1777 Clara Reeve’s Old English Baron.
1778 Death of Voltaire.
1778 Death of Rousseau.
1778 Fanny Burney’s Evelina.
1778 Walpole’s Miscellaneous Letters appear as Vol. V of his Collected Works.
1781 Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.
1782 Fanny Burney’s Cecilia.
1783 Peace of Versailles.
1784 Death of Johnson.
1784 Death of Diderot.
1784 Mitford’s History of Greece, Vol. I (completed 1810).
1786 Boswell’s Tour to the Hebrides.
1788–95 Trial of Warren Hastings.
1789 White’s Natural History of Selborne.
1791 Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
1794 Death of Gibbon.
1794 Paley’s Evidences.
1796 Fanny Burney’s Camilla.
1796 Gibbon’s Memoirs of my Life and Writings published with his Miscellaneous Works.
1842–6 Fanny Burney’s Diary and Letters published.
1857 Horace Walpole’s Letters, ed. P. Cunningham.
1903 Horace Walpole’s Letters, ed. Mrs. Paget Toynbee.