...Easter 1781, "Some time in March I finished the ' Lives of the Poets,' which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work and working with vigour and haste." JOHNSON'S FITNESS FOR THE WORK. Johnson possessed eminent qualifications for writing such Lives. A...

...Some time in March 1781, he writes, 'I finished the Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work and working with vigour and haste.' Meanwhile, his social circle began to be sadly invaded and broken. Goldsmith died in 1774, Garrick...

...found this paper. Some time in March I finished the Lives of. the Poets, which I wrote in mv usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste. On Wednesday 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday 4 ; and with him were buried...

...1781. Altogether it employed him for nearly four years. " I wrote it," he says, " in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste." The moral purpose to be served by his Lives was always present to his mind, and he hoped they " had...

...Lives. He had got the whole finished by Easter, 1781, having written, as he tells us, ' in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste.' The result was a rough biographical history of English poetry during the ages of Dryden and Pope.1...

...characteristic work, not finished until 1781, and ' which I wrote,' as he himself tells us, ' in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work and working with vigour and haste,' we have Johnson mellowed by years, Johnson in his ripeness and plenitude, treating the subject which...

...this account : 'Some time in March I finished the Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste V In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them : 'Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend...

...his ' Meditations' for 1781, ' I finished the " Lives of the Poets," which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste.' In a memorandum previous to this he says of them : ' written I hope, in such a manner as may tend to...

...characteristic lives, not finished until 1781, and "which I wrote,'' as he himself tells jus, "in my usual way, dilatorily and .hastily unwilling to work and working with vigour and haste," we have Johnson mellowed by years, Johnson in his ripeness and plenitude, treating the subject which...

...Lives were finished four years later, in March, 1781. ' I wrote them,' he says, ' in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste.' They were written, no doubt, partly at No. 8, Bolt Court, and partly in the room which was always kept...