Attributed to Samuel Johnson, "Johnsoniana", The European Magazine and London Review (January 1785), p. 55. The anecdote which quotes this line was reprinted in The Works of Samuel Johnson, vol. 11 (Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections), p. 216 (1787). According to George Birkbeck Hill, Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897, reprinted 1966), vol. 2, p. 1, 312, the author of this anecdote was George Steevens.https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Praise