et
To bathe in dew my roving feet;
Nor wants there note of Philomel,
Nor sound of distant-tinkling bell,
Nor lowings faint of herds remote,
Nor mastiff's bark from bosom'd cot;
Rustle the breezes lightly borne
O'er deep embattled ears of corn;
Round ancient elms, with humming noise,
Full loud the chafer-swarms rejoice."

The youthful poet is in full revolt against the law which forbade his
elders to mention objects by their plain names. Here we notice at once,
as we do in similar early effusions of both the Wartons, the direct
influence of Milton's lyrics. To examine the effect of the rediscovery
of Milton upon the poets of the middle of the eighteenth century would
lead us too far from the special subject of our inquiry to-day. But it
must be pointed out that _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_ had been
entirely neglected, and practically unknown, until a date long after the
rehabilitation of _Paradise Lost_. The date at which Handel set them to
music, 1740, is that of the revived or discovered popularity of these
two odes, which then began to be fashionable, at all events among the
younger poets. They formed a bridge, which linked the new writers with
the early seventeenth century across the Augustan Age, and their
versification as well as their method of description were as much
resisted by the traditional Classicists as they were attractive, and
directly preferred above those of Pope, by the innovators. Joseph
Warton, who attributed many of the faults of modern lyrical writing to
the example of Petrarch, sets Milton vehemently over against him, and
entreats the poets "to accustom themselves to contemplate fully every
object before they attempt to describe it." They were above all to avoid
nauseous repetition of commonplaces, and what Warton excellently calls
"hereditary images."

We must not, however, confine ourselves to a consideration of "The
Enthusiast" of 1740 and the preface to the _Odes_ of 1746. Certain of
the expressions, indeed, already quoted, are taken from the two very
important critical works which the brothers published while they were
still quite young. We must now turn particularly to Joseph Warton's
_Essay on the Genius of Pope_ of 1756, and to Thomas Warton's
_Observations on the Faerie Queene_ of 1754. Of these the former is the
more important and the more readable. Joseph's _Essay on Pope_ is an
extraordinary production for the time at which it was produced. L