One formula could no more suffice in itself for the poetic styles of the eighteenth century than for those of the nineteenth century; we may say, rather, that there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow sense of the term, though of course it is scarcely necessary to add that none of them is found in complete isolation from the others. There is first the stock descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression for that large amount of eighteenth century verse where, in the words of Taine, we can usually find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the same manner of placing the epithet and rounding the period,” and “regarding which we know beforehand with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”[250] In reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction, we seldom or never feel that we have been brought into contact with the real thoughts or feelings of living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative, conventional; though their glare and glitter may occasionally give us a certain pleasure, they rarely or never make any appeal to our sensibility. As someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land of empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar Hill,” have the _gradus_ epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in virtue of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet has been inspired. The received doctrine that it was due in the main to Pope’s “Homer” is unjust; many of the characteristics of this conventional poetical language were established long before Pope produced his translation. They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in Dryden, and if it is necessary to establish a fountain-head, “Paradise Lost” will be found to contain most of the words and phrases which the eighteenth century versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any degree it is only because in his work the heroic couplet was brought to a high pitch of perfection; no doubt too the immense popularity of the “Homer” translation led to servile imitation of many of its words, phrases, and similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope with the lack of original genius of so many of his successors and imitators. But the underlying cause of this conventional language must be sought elsewhere than in the mere imitation of any poet or poets. A passage from the “Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the fundamental conditions that had enslaved poetry in the shackles of a stereotyped language. It takes the form of a sort of literary confession by Wordsworth as to the method of composing his first poems, which, we have seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical vices against which his manifestoes rebelled. He speaks of the trade in classic niceties The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase From languages that want the living voice To carry meaning to the natural heart.