'But o, photography!...'

Today is the birthday of Samuel Johnson (born 1709). Over on Anecdotal Evidence, Patrick Kurp marks the occasion with a piece on various translations of one of Johnson's Latin verses, a memory of swimming in the waters of Stowe Pool in Lichfield, a 'meditation on memory, time's bittersweet passing, and lost youth'. The waters of Stowe no longer flow through green fields, and the Pool, an impressive body of water containing some fine fish, many an American crayfish and a terrapin called Terry, has something of the look of a reservoir (which it has been in its time). Lichfield will be celebrating Johnson's birthday – and the 125th anniversary of the opening of the birthplace museum – tomorrow. On this day in 1953, Philip Larkin wrote (or signed off on) 'Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album', which is also, in its way, a meditation on memory and time's bittersweet passing – and the nature of photography. Like so many of Larkin's poems, it ends beautifully. At last you yielded up the…