In Malone's correspondence are complaints of the backwardness of the members of the Literary Club 'to pay the amounts nominally subscribed by them.'

His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine.

Sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explaining.

As this was declining beforehand all subordinate office, an excessive modesty could hardly have been the cause of his backwardness at this juncture.

The two squires would infallibly ruin him upon the least appearance of backwardness on his part, as they were accustomed to do every inferior that resisted their will.

A philosophical treatise is wanting, of the causes of the backwardness with which persons after a certain time of life set about writing a letter.