which, exquisite as a work of art, is, in thought, a system of
naturalism set to music; and, while its art is the poet's own, its
doctrine comes from the "fell genius" of St John (Bolingbroke). Up to
Thomson's fine "Ode on the Death of Sir Isaac Newton," and the "Night
Thoughts," the great discoveries of astronomy obtained no poetical
recognition. Religious poetry, properly speaking, there was none; for
the hymns of Watts, although full of piety, can scarcely be called
poems; and the most popular poetry of the time was either founded on the
Latin, or written in imitation of Pope. Johnson's "London" and "Vanity
of Human Wishes" are instances of the former; and of the latter,
specimens too numerous to mention abounded.

Thus it continued till about the middle of the century, when there began
to appear symptoms of a change. First of all, a "fine fat fellow" from
Scotland, who had derived inspiration from the breezes of the Tweed and
the Jed, wrote that noble strain, "The Seasons," with its daguerreotypic
painting of nature, and its generous, healthy enthusiasm, and the
"Castle of Indolence," with its exquisite sketches of character and
scenery, and its rich reproduction of an antique style of poetry.
Thomson's voice did not, indeed, produce a revolution in taste, but it
obtained an audience for a species of writing entirely different from
what then prevailed. Young, next, in a bolder spirit, having broken the
trammels of Pope, which had confined him, soared up through Night and
all its worlds, and brought down genuine inspiration on his adventurous
wing. Dr Johnson, although considerably hampered in his verse by undue
admiration of the mechanical poets, allowed himself greater liberty in
his prose, which glowed with a deep, if somewhat turbid life, and
rolled on in a strong and solemn current, which often seemed that of
high imagination. Collins, smitten with a true "gadfly," born as one out
of due time, and, alas! "blasted with the celestial fire," he brought,
anticipated, in part, some of the miraculous effects of more modern
poetry. Gray, Mason, and Beattie, three men of unequal name, all wrote
in a different style from Addison, Swift, and Pope, and two of them
displayed genuine, if not very powerful, genius. Then came Percy, with
his "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," which showed what wonders our rude
forefathers had wrought by the force of simple nature; and to the same
end contributed Ossian's Poems, which, whatever their