'The Vanity of Human Wishes.' (Samuel Johnson's poem)

JOHNSON's use of the phrase |China to Peru' to represent |mankind' in the opening couplet of The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) was, it seems, in keeping with a tradition. Thomas Warton, the elder, had in his Of the Universal Love of Pleasure (1748) |All human Race, from China to Peru'. Well before him Sir William Temple had used the phrase in a similar sense when he talked of |all Nations from China to Peru' in of Poetry (1690).(1)

Joseph Glanvill's comments in The Vanity of Dogmatizing (London, 1661) offer a new insight into Johnson's use of |China to Peru'. This influential book whose title bears a startling resemblance to that of Johnson's poem, was later dedicated …