as well as the hostile characterisation of the Metaphysical style in the life of Abraham Cowley. Nor can Johnson's prejudices be palliated by the observation in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature that "he was much more interested in the man than in that part of him which is the author ...He claimed for it no exclusive privileges, nor held that the poet was a man apart to be measured by standards inapplicable to other men." List of Lives The poets included are: Abraham Cowley Sir John Denham John Milton Samuel Butler (Hudibras) John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon Thomas Otway Edmund Waller John Pomfret Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset George Stepney John Philips William Walsh John Dryden Edmund Smith Richard Duke William King Thomas Sprat Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax Thomas Parnell Samuel Garth Nicholas Rowe Joseph Addison John Hughes John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham Matthew Prior William Congreve Sir Richard Blackmore Elijah Fenton John Gay George Granville, Lord Lansdowne Thomas Yalden Thomas Tickell James Hammond William Somervile Richard Savage Jonathan Swift William Broome Alexander Pope Christopher Pitt James Thomson Isaac Watts Ambrose Philips Gilbert West William Collins John Dyer William Shenstone Edward Young David Mallet Mark Akenside Thomas Gray George, Lord Lyttelton Editorial responses Although the quality of Johnson's writing has guaranteed the survival of his last considerable undertaking, its critical limitations generated published responses almost immediately. One of Johnson's own friends, John Scott, so differed in opinion with some of his judgments that he wrote essays of his own on individual works by John Denham, John Dyer, Milton, Pope, Collins, Goldsmith and Thomson which were published in 1785 under the title Critical Essays on Some of the Poems of Several English Poets. When dealing with Goldsmith's The Deserted Village he takes particular issue with the principles of inclusion in the collection of poets with which Johnson was associated: "The Temple of Fame, lately erected under the title of The Works of the English Poets, affords a striking instance of caprice in the matter of admission to literary honours", he charged. To Scott the choice of poets seemed lacking in either method or "rational impartial criticism" (p.247). In the same year appeared the new edition of Poems by the Most Eminent Ladies of Great Britain and Ireland…with considerable alterations, additions and improvements. It has been conjectured, as mentioned above, that a reissue