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CYCLOPÆDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Sixth Period.

FROM 1727 ΤΟ 1780.

POETS.

HE fifty-three

comprehend

ing the reign

of George II.,

and a portion

of that of

George III.,

produced more

men of letters,

as well as more

lity and philosophy with a beautiful simplicity of expression and numbers, pathetic imagery, and natural description. Beattie portrayed the roman

years between tic hopes and aspirations of youthful genius in a 1727 and 1780, style formed from imitation of Spenser and Thomson. And the best of the secondary poets, as Shenstone, Dyer, and Mason, had each a distinct and independent poetical character. Johnson alone, of all the eminent authors of this period, seems to have directly copied the style of Pope and Dryden. The publication of Percy's Reliques, and Warton's History of Poetry, may be here adverted to, as directing public attention to the early writers, and to the powerful effects which could be produced by simple narrative and natural emotion in verse. It is true that few or none of the poets we have named had much immediate influence on literature: Gray was ridiculed, and Collins was neglected, because both public taste and criticism had been vitiated and reduced to a low ebb. The spirit of true poetry, however, was not broken; the seed was sown, and in the next generation, Cowper completed what Thomson had begun. The conventional style was destined to fall, leaving only that taste for correct language and versification which was established by the example of Pope, and found to be quite compatible with the utmost freedom and originality of conception and expression.

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men of science, than any
epoch of similar extent in
the literary history of Eng-
land. It was also a time
during which greater pro-
gress was made in diffusing
literature among the people
at large, than had been made,
perhaps, throughout all the

ages that went before it. Yet while letters, and
the cultivators of letters, were thus abundant, it
must be allowed that, if we keep out of view the
rise of the species of fiction called the novel (includ-
ing the delineation of character, and not merely in-
cidents), the age was not by any means marked by
such striking features of originality or vigour as
some of the preceding eras.

În describing the poets of this period, it will not be necessary to include all the names that have descended to us dignified with this title. But we shall omit none whose literary history is important, singular, or instructive.

For about a third of this period Pope lived, and his name continued to be the greatest in English poetry. 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 pungent 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 -the direct antipodes of Pope. Akenside descanted on the operations of the mind, and the associated charms of taste and genius, in a strain of melodious and original blank verse. Goldsmith blended mora

RICHARD SAVAGE.

RICHARD SAVAGE is better known for his misfor

R: Savage

novelty or merit in his poetry. The latter rarely rises above the level of tame mediocrity; the former were a romance of real life, stranger than fiction. Savage was born in London in 1698, the issue of an adulterous connexion between the Countess of Mac

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