The significance of such an essay as Dr. Johnson's on Addison in his Lives of the Poets seems to be three-fold: (i) it throws light on certain biographical details which might have gone unnoticed (ii) it presents a chronological account of his works, both important and unimportant (in) through it we can get some help to gauge the temper of the times. Our difficulty with Dr. Johnson is, of course, his strong likes and dislikes and also his moralist posture. Luckily for us, however, the great Doctor appears to be reasonably sympathetic to Addison, but since habits die hard, we may have to make some allowance for his predilections and prejudices in our analysis of the essay in hand.

Keywords: Critique, Chronological Account, Prejudices, Spectator.