The latter half of the eighteenth century, comparatively poor though it is in poetry of an imaginative sort, is rich in satiric literature of every variety. Nearly every able writer of verse--even including Gray--tried his hand at satire, and the resulting product is enormous. The heroic couplet as employed by Pope was recognized as the proper measure for formal satire, and the influence of Pope appeared in the diverse forms used: the mock-heroic, the personal epistle, the critical verse-essay, and the moral or preceptive poem. At the same time no small proportion of less formal satire took the manner of Gay and Swift, in the octosyllabic couplet. The ballad and other less dignified measures still continued popular for ephemeral satire. Finally there was a body of work, including Cowper’s _Task_, the satiric poems of Burns, and the early _Tales_ of Crabbe, which must be regarded as, in some respects, exceptional. Of the satirists of the school of Pope, the greater number seem to have had Dr. Johnson’s conception of Satire as the son of Wit and Malice, although, like Pope, they continued to pose as the upholders of morality even when indulging in the most indiscriminate abuse.[13] They borrowed the lesser excellencies of their master, but seldom attained to his brilliance, keeping, as far as they were able, to his form and method, but lacking the genius to reanimate his style. The mock-heroic was exceedingly popular during the fifty years following the death of Pope. The satires of one group, following _The Rape of the Lock_, contain no personal invective, and are satiric only in the sense that any parody of a serious _genre_ is satiric.[14] Another class of mock-heroics, modelled particularly on the _Dunciad_, make no pretence of refraining from personal satire, and are often violently scurrilous.[15] A large number of poems imitate the title of the _Dunciad_ without necessarily having any mock-heroic characteristics.[16] In the field of personal, and especially of political, satire, are many poems not corresponding exactly to any of the above mentioned types.[17] The bitter party feeling aroused by the rise to power of Lord Bute and by the resulting protests of Wilkes in the _North Briton_ was the occasion of many broadsides during the decade between 1760 and 1770.[18]