Metaphysical poets Flecknoe" and Joseph Addison, in quoting him, singled out the poetry of George Herbert as providing a flagrant example. There is no scholarly consensus regarding which English poets or poems fit within the Metaphysical genre. In his initial use of the term, Johnson quoted just three poets: Abraham Cowley, John Donne, and John Cleveland. Colin Burrow, writing for the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", singles out John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Crashaw as 'central figures', while naming many more, all or part of whose work has been identified as sharing its characteristics. Herbert Grierson’s "Metaphysical
Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets Arnold the whole work, focusing on these six, formed a "compendious story of a whole important age in English literature, told by a great man, and in a performance which is itself a piece of English literature of the first class". In mentioning this reading of Johnson’s Lives at the start of his own article in "The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson", Greg Clingham describes the topics covered there as “like a list of most of the important issues in literary history during the years 1600–1781" as well as something like a social, philosophical and political history of that era.