Personal description: Thomson's portrait of himself: Armstrong's portrait Picture of the material prosperity of England. Characteristics of Thomson's blank-verse: its Miltonic groundwork. Birth, education, history, and character. Tendency of his genius to make poetry abstract and philosophical. Deistical vein of thought: enthusiastic Hellenism. Johnson's criticism on Akenside's style considered: his dislike of Johnson's censure of Akenside's lyrics. The classical manner of Akenside's lyric verse a reflection of his Whig OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL POETS John Armstrong: his Art of Preserving Health. David Mallet pretended author of William and Margaret: his Amyntor John Dyer: his Fleece and Ruins of Rome. Approximation of Poetry to Painting: a symptom of the constitutional Insignificant influence of the Deists in English society at large. Unsatisfying effects of the Religious Compromise of the Revolution of Birth, education, history, and character. Hora Lyrica: Preface compared with Giles Fletcher's Preface to Christ's Secluded character of English Nonconformity after the Restoration. Watts' poems on the subject of Divine Love. His congregational hymns. Their influence on country congregations illustrated. Difference in spirit between Nonconformity and Methodism. John Wesley's description of Methodism. Birth, education, history, and character of the Wesleys. Influence exercised on them by William Law, the Nonjuror. They accept the doctrine of Justification by Faith. Widespread influence of the Methodist movement. Contrast between the life of the Wesleys and that of Cowper. Cowper's birth, education, history, and character. State of English Poetry when Cowper began to write. Defect of satiric genius in Cowper: the result of his recluse habits and Examples of inadequate satiric treatment in The Progress of Error and Cowper's defective style in satire : imitation of Young and Churchill. Felicity in the choice and treatment of the subject. Imitation of The Splendid Shilling. Midway stage between The Seasons and The Excursion. Cowper's strong sense of local colour: his well-bred egotism. Specimen of nature-painting in The Task. Purity of his lyrical diction. Examples of refined simplicity in his versification. Masculine style of religious lyrical poetry in the eighteenth century the result of the classical influence. Sir Robert Walpole and Horace Walpole. The contrast in their characters symbolical of the change in English society. The common features in their Whiggism. Horace Walpole's correspondence illustrative of the change in national character: his ennui: his æstheticism: his desire for increased liberty of Birth, education, history, and character. The Gentle Shepherd: an adaptation of the Italian pastoral drama. Specimens of his poetic dialogue and songs. Mixture of classic and romantic elements in The Gentle Shepherd. Birth, education, history, and character Representative of the cultivated class of English "Squires": his love of His friendship with Allan Ramsay. Epistle to Ramsay on the publication of The Gentle Shepherd. Birth, education, history, and character. His efforts to revive lyric poetry. Birth, education, history, and character. Mixture in him of romantic and classic tastes. His Pleasures of Melancholy: early note in the revival of Mediævalism. His verses On Sir Joshua Reynolds' Painted Window at New College, The two Wartons the pioneers of the Romantic Movement. Birth, education, history, and character. Causes of the dislike of Johnson and Goldsmith for the poetry of Collins Colloquial, as distinct from literary idiom, in their opinion, the true groundwork of poetical diction. Comparison of the genius of Gray with that of Collins. Hazlitt's opinion: how far just. Gray's temperament contrasted with that of Collins. Enthusiasm in the opening of Collins' Ode to Liberty. Superior constructive power in Gray's Odes. Gray's criticism of Collins' and Joseph Warton's Odes. Want of finish in Collins' poetic diction. Gray's classical lucidity. Effects of the Classical Renaissance on the styles of Collins and Gray. Their common perception of the connection between Liberty and Poetry. Collins' admiration for the Greeks: reproduction of Greek characteristics Gray's Latin style in his Elegy. ADVANCE OF THE DILETTANTE SPIRIT IN ENGLISH SOCIETY Influence of Montesquieu and Rousseau. The medieval reaction headed by the Wartons. Literary Revivals: Erse Legend: Scandinavian Mythology: forms of OSSIANISM: JAMES MACPHERSON His Erse Fragments. Excitement in Scotland over the supposed discovery of Ossian. Johnson's scepticism. Opinion of Mr. Bailey Saunders considered. Macpherson's Fingal and Temora. The mode of their composition: their literary merit. Specimen of their style contrasted with that of genuine antiquity. SCANDINAVIAN REVIVAL Disappearance of Scandinavian mythology from mediæval English verse. Imitations by Henry Mackenzie, etc. Frauds of John Logan: his Danish Odes. Nathan Drake's enthusiasm. Belief that in the Scandinavian Paradise the heroes drank out of the skulls Scandinavian Romanticism generally embodied in the form of translation. BALLAD REVIVAL Ballad style preserved by surviving feudal feeling in the English and David Mallet's theft of William and Margaret. William Hamilton of Bangour's Braes of Yarrow. W. J. Mickle's Cumnor Hall: Lady Anne Lindsay's Auld Robin Gray. PSEUDO-MEDIÆVALISM: THOMAS CHATTERTON His birth, education, history, and character. His inability to preserve a consistently antique style. His imitation of modern poets. His genius. The Rowley forgeries typical of the artificial character of the early |