(_b_) The change was first seen in the free use of the _Pindaric ode_ in the works of Gray and Collins, which appeared in the middle years of the century. The Pindaric ode is a useful medium for the transitional stage, for it has the double advantage of being “classical” and of being free from the more formal rules of couplet and stanza. Gray’s _The Bard_ (1757) and Collins’s ode _The Passions_ (1747) are among the best of the type. (_c_) Another omen was the revival of the _ballad_, which was due to renewed interest in the older kinds of literature. The revived species, as seen in Goldsmith’s _The Hermit_ and Cowper’s _John Gilpin_, has not the grimness and crude narrative force of the genuine ballad, but it is lively and often humorous. Another ballad-writer was =Thomas Percy (1729–1811)=, who, in addition to collecting the _Reliques_ (1765), composed ballads of his own, such as _The Friar of Orders Grey_. Chatterton’s _Bristowe Tragedy_ has much of the fire and somberness of the old ballads. (_d_) The _descriptive and narrative poems_ begin with the old-fashioned _London_ (1738) of Johnson; the development is seen in Goldsmith’s _Traveller_ (1764) and _Deserted Village_ (1770), in which the heroic couplet is quickened and transformed by a real sympathy for nature and the poor; the advance is carried still further by the blank-verse poems of Cowper (_The Task_) and Crabbe (_The Village_) and the Spenserian stanzas of minor poets like Shenstone (_The Schoolmistress_). (_e_) Finally there is the rise of the _lyric_. The Pindarics of Collins and Gray are lyrics in starch and buckram; the works of Chatterton, Smart, Macpherson, Cowper, and, lastly, of Burns and Blake show in order the lyrical spirit struggling with its bonds, shaking itself free, and finally soaring in triumph. Romanticism has arrived. =2. Drama.= In this period nothing is more remarkable than the poverty of its dramatic literature. Of this no real explanation can be given. The age was simply not a dramatic one; for the plays that the age produced, with the exceptions of a few notable examples of comedy, are hardly worth noticing. Tragedy comes off worst of all. The sole tragedy hitherto mentioned in this chapter is Johnson’s _Irene_ (1749), which only the reputation of its author has preserved from complete oblivion. A tragedy which had a great vogue was _Douglas_ (1754), by =John Home (1722–1808)=. It is now almost forgotten. =Joanna Baillie (1762–1851)= produced some historical blank-verse tragedies, such as _Count Basil_ (1798) and _De Montfort_ (1798). Her plays make fairly interesting reading, and some of their admirers, including Scott, said that she was Shakespeare revived. Among the comedies we have the sprightly plays of Goldsmith, already noticed, Fielding’s _Tom Thumb_, and the work of =Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)=.