Grúbstreet. n.s. 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.
Χᾶιῤ Ιθακὴ μετ᾽ ἄεθλα, μετ᾽ ἄλγεα πικρὰ
Ἀσπασίως τέον οὗδας ἱκάνομαι.
The first part, though calculated only for the meridian of grubstreet, was yet taken notice of by the better sort. Arbuthn.
I'd sooner ballads write, and grubstreet lays. Gay.
The Greek text is included by Johnson as a “salute to his literary homeland” (DeMaria, Jr, Robert. Johnson’s Dictionary and the Language of Learning
. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. p. 26). It is taken from an anonymous epigram from The Greek Anthology.
The full epigram:
τί ἂν εἴποι Ὀδυσσεὺς ἐπιβὰς τῆς Ἰθάκης
χαῖρ᾽ Ἰθάκη: μετ᾽ ἄεθλα, μετ᾽ ἄλγεα πικρὰ θαλάσσης
ἀσπασίως τεὸν οὖδας ἱκάνομαι, ὄφρα νοήσω
Λαέρτην, ἄλοχόν τε καὶ ἀγλαὸν υἱέα μοῦνον
σὸς γὰρ ἔρως κατέθελξεν ἐμὸν νόον. οἶδα καὶ αὐτός,
‘ὡς οὐδὲν γλύκιον ἧς πατρίδος οὐδὲ τοκήων.’
What Ulysses would say on landing in Ithaca
Hail, Ithaca! After all my labours and the bitter woes of the sea, right glad am I to reach thy soil, in hope to see Laertes and my wife and glorious only son. Love of thee soothed my heart; I myself know that “nothing is sweeter than a man’s country and his parents.”
(Source: The Greek Anthology., Vol. III. edited and translated by W. R. Paton. The Loeb Classical Library. London: William Heinemann, 1925. Epigram #458 – pages 254-257).