When we turn from the political and controversial writings of the Revolution to such lighter literature as existed, we find little that would deserve mention in a more crowded period. The few things in this kind that have kept afloat on the current of time--_rari nantes in gurgite vasto_--attract attention rather by reason of their fewness than of any special excellence that they have. During the eighteenth century American literature continued to accommodate itself to changes of taste in the old country. The so-called classical or Augustan writers of the reign of Queen Anne replaced other models of style; the _Spectator_ set the fashion of almost all of our lighter prose, from Franklin's _Busybody_ down to the time of Irving, who perpetuated the Addisonian tradition later than any English writer. The influence of Locke, of Dr. Johnson, and of the parliamentary orators has already been mentioned. In poetry the example of Pope was dominant, so that we find, for example, William Livingston, who became governor of New Jersey and a member of the Continental Congress, writing in 1747 a poem on _Philosophic Solitude_ which reproduces the tricks of Pope's antitheses and climaxes with the imagery of the _Rape of the Lock_, and the didactic morality of the _Imitations from Horace_ and the _Moral Essays_: "Let ardent heroes seek renown to arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, tyrants, emperors, and czars." The most popular poem of the Revolutionary period was John Trumbull's _McFingal_, published in part at Philadelphia in 1775, and incomplete shape at Hartford in 1782. It went through more than thirty editions in America, and was several times reprinted in England. _McFingal_ was a satire in four cantos, directed against the American loyalists, and modeled quite closely upon Butler's mock heroic poem, _Hudibras_. As Butler's hero sallies forth to put down May games and bear-baitings, so the tory McFingal goes out against the liberty-poles and bonfires of the patriots, but is tarred and feathered, and otherwise ill-entreated, and finally takes refuge in the camp of General Gage at Boston. The poem is written with smartness and vivacity, attains often to drollery and sometimes to genuine humor. It remains one of the best of American political satires, and unquestionably the most successful of the many imitations of _Hudibras_, whose manner it follows so closely that some of its lines, which have passed into currency as proverbs, are generally attributed to Butler. For example: "No man e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law." Or this: