Among the same class of cheerful-minded men may also be mentioned Luther, More, Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.

Perhaps they were happy because constantly occupied, and in the pleasantest of all work--that of creating out of the fulness and richness of their great minds.
Milton, too, though a man of many trials and sufferings, must have been a man of great cheerfulness and elasticity of nature.

Though overtaken by blindness, deserted by friends, and fallen upon evil days--"darkness before and danger's voice behind"-- yet did he not bate heart or hope, but "still bore up and steered right onward." Henry Fielding was a man borne down through life by debt, and difficulty, and bodily suffering; and yet Lady Mary Wortley Montague has said of him that, by virtue of his cheerful disposition, she was persuaded he "had known more happy moments than any person on earth." Dr.Johnson, through all his trials and sufferings and hard fights with fortune, was a courageous and cheerful-natured man.

He manfully made the best of life, and tried to be glad in it.

Once, when a clergyman was complaining of the dulness of society in the country, saying "they only talk of runts" [17young cows], Johnson felt flattered by the observation of Mrs.Thrale's mother, who said, "Sir, Dr.Johnson would learn to talk of runts"-- meaning that he was a man who would make the most of his situation, whatever it was.
Johnson was of opinion that a man grew better as he grew older, and that his nature mellowed with age.