Samuel Johnson

 His literary career seems to divide naturally into three stages. Up to 1749 [age 40], he is the desperately poor, bitter, Grub Street journalist. The great works of this stage are London and The Life of Savage. From 1749 to 1762, he wins and consolidates his position as moralist and lexicographer; the monuments of this stage are The Vanity of Human Wishes, the three series of essays (Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler), the Dictionary, and Rasselas. The second stage is concluded by his reception of a pension. This radically altered both his way of life and his way of writing; it made him into the figure we know from Boswell, the ‘Great Cham of Literature’ (in Smollett’s phrase), and the greatest recorded talker of the language. The works of this stage - more relaxed, sprawling, colloquial —are the edition of Shakespeare, the Journey to the Western Islands, and The Lives of Poets. Through all three stages, but very sparsely in the first and in much the greatest mass in the third, is a stream of letters, prayers and journals, which ought to be regarded as no less part of his work than those writings which he printed.

From Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings, Penguin Classics, Preface by Patrick Crutwell

from Google:

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, Grub Street was “originally the name of a street in Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called grubstreet.” The term was a metaphor for the commercial production of printed matter

wikipedia:

Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting as a dam, impeding the flow of the River Walbrook and its tributaries.

Ah, The River Walbrook. I studied this. I love the ancient rivers of London. The Walbrook was a stream that ran through what became "The City of London" (which itself was the old Roman garrison that was fortified with walls). London began as a Roman occupational fort to dominate the local Celtic presence. The Walbrook emptied directly into the Thames. The Walbrook was used as a fresh water supply. By the Industrial Revolution it became an open sewer and was bricked over. If I returned to London and needed something to do, I would retrace its ancient route.

I wrote about the Walbrook during my London history posts in 2016.  (link)

https://theticketcollector.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-thames-freezes-over-london-late.html