Cyclopædia of English Literature: A History, Critical and Biographical, of ...

expression and numbers, pathetic imagery, and HE fifty-three natural description. Beattie portrayed the romanyears between tic hopes and aspirations of youthful genius in a 1727 and 1780, style formed from imitation of Spenser and Thomcomprehend- son. And the best of the secondary poets, as Shen

ing the reign stone, Dyer, and Mason, had each a distinct and inof George II., dependent poetical character. Johnson alone, of all and a portion the eminent authors of this period, seems to have of that of directly copied the style of Pope and Dryden. The George III., publication of Percy's Reliques, and Warton's History produced more of Poetry, may be here adverted to, as directing public men of letters, attention to the early writers, and to the powerful

as well as more effects which could be produced by simple narrative men of science, than any and natural emotion in verse. It is true that few epoch of similar extent in or none of the poets we have named had much imthe literary history of Eng- mediate influence on literature : Gray was ridiculed, land. It was also a time and Collins was neglected, because both public taste during which greater pro- and criticism had been vitiated and reduced to a gress was made in diffusing low ebb. The spirit of true poetry, however, was literature among the people not broken ; the seed was sown, and in the next at large, than had been made, generation, Cowper completed what Thomson had

perhaps, throughout all the begun. The conventional style was destined to fall, ages that went before it. Yet while letters, and leaving only that taste for correct language and ver

the cultivators of letters, were thus abundant, it sification which was established by the example of must be allowed that, if we keep out of view the Pope, and found to be quite compatible with the rise of the species of fiction called the novel (includ- utmost freedom and originality of conception and ing the delineation of character, and not merely in- expression. cidents), the age was not by any means marked by În describing the poets of this period, it will not such striking features of originality or vigour as be necessary to include all the names that have some of the preceding eras.

descended to us dignified with this title. But we For about a third of this period Pope lived, and his shall omit none whose literary history is important, name continued to be the greatest in English poetry. singular, or instructive. The most distinguished of his contemporaries, however, adopted styles of their own, or at least departed widely from that of their illustrious master. Thomson (who survived Pope only four years) made no attempt to enter the school of polished satire and

RICHARD SAVAGE is better known for his misforpungent wit. His enthusiastic descriptions of nature, tunes, as related by Johnson, than for any peculiar and his warm poetical feeling, seemed to revive the spirit of the elder muse, and to assert the dignity of genuine inspiration. Young in his best performances -his startling denunciations of death and judgment, his solemn appeals, his piety, and his epigram-was equally an original. Gray and Collins aimed at the dazzling imagery and magnificence of lyrical poetry novelty or merit in his poetry. The latter rarely -the direct antipodes of Pope. Akenside descanted rises above the level of tame mediocrity ; the former on the operations of the mind, and the associated were a romance of real life, stranger than fiction. charms of taste and genius, in a strain of melodious Savage was born in London in 1698, the issue of an and original blank verse. Goldsmith blended mora- | adulterous connexion between the Countess of Mac

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Cyclopædia of English Literature: A History, Critical and ..., 第 2 卷