Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Life of Collins [from Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, familiarly known as The Lives of the Poets]

London

J. Nichols

1779-1780, 1781

"He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction and subjects of fancy, and by indulging some peculiar habits of thought was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions."

Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but with the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction and subjects of fancy, and by indulging some peculiar habits of thought was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of inchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the water-falls of Elysian gardens.

Motion::Flight

Reading

At least 3 entries in ESTC (1779, 1781, 1790). [vols. 1 to 5 dates 1779, vols. 5 to 10, 1781)

Samuel Johnson, Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, vol. 9 (London: Bathurst et al., 1779). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>

Text from Jack Lynch's online edition, based on G. B. Hill's Lives of the English Poets, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905). <Link>

12/31/2010