Great as was the eighteenth century in prose, its claims upon us are yet greater in the field of poetry. The taco dominant figures of the period were, indeed, Pope and Johnson; but their rigid and sometimes absurd classicism was in their own day beginning to be superseded by the romantic revival, whose culmination constitutes the brightest chapter in our literary history after the Elizabethans. For their contemporaries they were the overshadowing poets. In Dr. Johnson we find a man who, by virtue of his vigorous personality. even more than Dryden and Pope, stood out from his age. What he lacked in intrinsic literary preeminence he supplied by a tyrannous dictatorship. His impetuous prefa tory `Sir!' was sutlicient to intimidate, if not to convince. and his reign as literary lawgiver ended only with his life. For all his rersatility, he is now largely a literary memory. and survives rather as a pensonality. Ilis !Ares of the Poets discovers gleams of genuine critical insight, hut, on account of ingrained prejudice. his judg ments are untrustworthy. His "Vanity of Du man Wishes" and his "London" are good imita tions of the Popian satire, hut they must suffer by comparison. The play Irene is known to few. The Rambler and the Idler are heavy successors of the periodical essay made so popular by Steele and Addison. But the preface to his Shakespeare is deservedly famous for its nneommon good sense, and the Dictionary is a monument of lazy industry. not without absurd eccentricities. I he man. however. who could inspire perhaps the best biography ever written, merits, aside from lit erary considerations. all the immortality he en joys. Pope it is. however, who inevitably as the largest claim on our attention when this century is thought of. Ile is the representa tive voice, his the characteristic manner. By some denied the title of poet at all, he was by a few classed with Shakespeare as a twin glory; and, for obvious reasons, he is, after the great dramatist. the most quotable of English poets. To apothegniati• thought he joined admirable conciseness of phrase. We must not confound his own viewpoint with that of a later day. If we take exception to his poetical ideals, we must allow that in his own dine lie was consummate awl unapproachable in their execution. It is, however, the consensus of opinion that he was a clever versifier and epigrammatist rather than a poet in anything like the highest sense of the term. Ilis mental alertness is always seconded by mechanical skill. But, though more perfect in polish, his couplets are tar from equal in beauty and variety to and Goldsmith's, and much below Dryden's and Browning's in strength. Like them, he could not snatch a grace beyond the reach of art. lie polished until he polished all spontaneity out of his verse. It affects us as machine-made—the work of an artisan rather of an artist. No wonder the tine poetic soul of Keats recoiled from it as re sembling the rocking of a hobby-horse. From these considerations one is prepared to admit that. Pope stand, supreme in didactic verse, and that is not equivalent to damning with faint praise. It is equally true that he is peerless in the mock-heroic. Cmpiestionably The Rave of the Lori; is a masterpiece of its kind, but it is too charaeteristie to warrant the praise some times bestowed. Ile was by temperament finely constituted for satire, and though sonic of his friendships were warns, 7'hc Dunciad reveals him alike at his best and at. his worst. The "Essay on Criticism," the "Essay on Man," and the various 'epistles' discover the clever loan of letters with a remarkably facility for rhyming the literary canons and philosophy current in his day. For any intellectual force which the ideas themselves may possess by eau present 111' legitimate claim he is simply the adapter, though his alone is the form. Ile was for the most part as devoid of emotion as of imagination, but there is one poem in which a real human interest predominates. The least distinctive. it will appear to many his hest. "Eloisa to .lbelar41" is a soliloquy, which, while inevitably artificial, yet appeals to the heart, and brings the tragic lives of the ill-fated pair with a degree of Vividness us. Per haps more than anything else this poem, so little heard of, reveals to tis the potential maker. If Byron's somewhat extravagant admiration 01011141 be shared by or if the (-mu should 110111, it would seem that it must be by yirlue of historical criticism and the personal estimate, rather than because of any absolute Talkie prOMinence. lint let the do say what Hwy. will, I he little Mall WIIOM' indomitable will sustained the was tulle would have appalled a weaker spirit wrought it tont IS fin. will never cease to 1111Ve a following.
The crowning glory of the century, however, was its least characteristic poetry. Now returns that fresh breath of field and woodland, absent since Milton, but nevermore lacking, this time the love of nature for its own sake. It is conspicu ous in Gray, Thomson, Cowper, Goldsmith, Col ]ins, and Burns, but culminates in Wordsworth, and is inevitable, almost the touchstone, in all ninei centh-century verse. Gray ( 1716-1771) had the scholarship befitting his fastidious classical taste. and yet his "Elegy" breathes the very spirit of the time in its genial recognition of com mon brotherhood, and its catholic appreciation of virtue wherever found. It was a new voice, and sweet are its accents still. By this utterance the man is best known. though his other poetical Work is memorable, and the Letters are almost incomparable. The romantic spirit was in the air, and became rapidly infectious, but the tradi tions of a staid classicism obstinately persisted, and incongruously mingled with the more unre strained newcomer, notably in Thomson.
It is this new ideal—romanticism—which, after the novel, gives the eighteenth century its strongest claim to distinction, so far as tendencies are concerned, and the tracing of the movement from its beginnings is no less instruc tive than alluring. Cardinal dates must always mark the tremendous significance of Percy's Re liques. Of perhaps less importance, but similar in aim and spirit, Ossian exerted great influence on the time, now fairly alive with new things. SN'hateyer the merits of the controversy about its value or authorship, we are surely indebted to Macpherson for a work quite unique. The mar velous boy Chatterton is one of the many evi dences of the prodigality of this renascence. Like poor Swift, dying atop, the melancholy Cowper and the sensitive Collins had yet to sing, the one in meditative strains, the other in madly im petuous lyrics. Thomson's Seasons had great popularity in Pope's own day, and was com mended by the man who fancied he could invent nature, so completely had it been forgotten. The "Pastorals" is the dismal result. But Thomson's highest achievement is the "Castle of indolence." which might well be mistaken for the witchery of Spenser himself. For Goldsmith the world cher ishes unmixed affection. Ile is dear as poet. critic, dramatist, novelist. and if his history and science will not hear closest scrutiny the charm of the style is amply sufficient to redeem errors in matters of fact. And for all lie was, in a worldly sense, impractical. lie brought so rich a fund of common sense to poetry and the drama that he demolished the sentimental stage, and invested deseriptive poetry with a charm as grateful as it is rare.
For historical• if not for better reasons, Beat tie should be mentioned for his Minstrel, Shen stone for his Schoolmistress, Akenside for his Pleasures of the Imagination. Young for his Vi!//4i Thoughts, Churchill for his Roseiod and other satirical work. Blair for his Ora re, Dyer for his Orongar Gay for his Beggar's Opera, Itanissy for his Gentle Shepherd, and Parnell for his Hermit. The mystical Blake (1757 1827) had a nature sublimely artistic, and his Sof/9s of Innocence and Songs of Experience are alike valued for imaginative poetry and for symbolistic. art. In no indefinite sense he is akin to Dante (Infidel Rossetti. Crabbc is noteworthy for his fidelity in depicting real life in his l'inagc and his Tales of the nail, and Bowles for his sonnets, which Coleridge greatly admired. But, alien as he is from its spirit, the most consummate flower of the century, the must spontaneous genius of its poetry, is Robert Burns (1759-1796). If ever poet WaS inspired by some thing beyond himself to sing his inner raptures, it was this Scotch peasant. Head, heart, and eye alert, he sang to a rapt world such strains as are seldom heard. For fervor, genuine manhood, ab solute sincerity. emotional power, and essential poetic beauty he has few peers. Education would have spoiled him; he loses his sureness of touch when he essays the classical English, but he goes straight to the heart with the winsome grace of his Doric Scotch. That he should have arisen in an age which had been given over to artifice under the delusion that it was art is not amaz ing, for he was a lyric poet born. He was democratic in a time when to be so was to be solitary, radically true when cant and hypocrisy were rampant, and his satire is the bitterer be cause iris heart was naturally so gentle and lov ing. He had a sense of worth, a sanity of thought, a largeness of vision which made him resolute and unfearing alike in championing the true and in lashing the false.