"That he sold so valuable a performance for so small a price, was not to be imputed either to necessity, by which the learned and ingenious are often obliged to submit to very hard conditions, or to avarice, by which the booksellers are frequently incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported; but to that intemperate desire of pleasure and habitual slavery to his passions, which involved him in many perplexities."
Life of Savage [from Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, familiarly known as The Lives of the Poets]
At least 3 entries in ESTC (1779, 1781, 1790). [vols. 1 to 5 dates 1779, vols. 5 to 10, 1781)<br>
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Samuel Johnson, <u>Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets</u>, vol. 9 (London: Bathurst et al., 1781). &lt;<a href="http://estc.bl.uk/T44190">Link to ESTC</a>&gt;&lt;<a href="http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&contentSet=ECCOArticles&type=multipage&tabID=T001&prodId=ECCO&docId=CW3310180104&source=gale&userGroupName=viva_uva&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE">Link to ECCO</a>&gt;<br>  <br>  Text from Jack Lynch's online edition, based on G. B. Hill's  <u>Lives of the English Poets</u>, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905). &lt;<a href="http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/milton.html">Link</a>&gt;