Chap. XX.] Poetrij. . 8 



done their best ; and what shall be added will 

 be the eftbrt of tedious toil Hud needless curio- 

 sity*." 



English poetry is also indebted to several who 

 have written since Mr. Pope. The names of 

 these, and the nalure and amount of the services 

 which they rendered, will be more fully brought 

 to the mind of the intelligent reader in reviewing 

 hereafter the particular works by wiiich they are 

 most honourably known to the public. 



About the beo-innins: of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury there was a race of versifiers in Europe, and 

 especially in Great Britain, vvho have been called 

 by the critics metaphysical poets 'f. They were 

 generally men of learning, and niany of them en- 

 dowed with genius ; but were either destitute of 

 taste, or possessed only that vvhich was false and 

 perverted. Pedantic, subtle, obscure, and con- 

 fused, they presented absurd and gross conceits, 

 rather than just images ; scholastic refmements, 

 rather than copies of nature ; and far-fetched ideas 

 and illustrations, to display their reading, rather 

 than that chaste simplicity v\diich delights, and 

 that " noble expanse of thought which fdls the 

 whole mind." This race of poets, if such they 

 may be called, did not become extinct till toward 

 the close of the seventeenth century. Cowle\-, 

 Waller, Denham, and many others, were infected 

 with the false taste which they had propagated, 

 and thus extended the mischief. Milton, though 

 he adopted, in one instance, the manner of these 

 metaphysical versifiers, yet in general disdained 



* ^ife of Pope, by Johnson. t ^'/* ^f Coiiley, by Johnson. 



