The literary use of abstraction and personification was not, it is needless to say, the invention of the eighteenth century. It is as old as literature itself, which has always reflected a tendency to interpret or explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with the invisible powers that direct or influence human conduct, by means of allegory, English poetry in the Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland, and their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great world of abstraction which had slowly come into being, a world peopled by personified states or qualities—the Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love, etc.—typifying or symbolizing the forces which help man, or beset and ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s progress through this world. Already the original motive power of allegory was considerably diminished, even if it had not altogether disappeared, and, by the time of the “Faerie Queene,” the literary form which it had moulded for itself had become merely imitative and conventional, so that even the music and melody of Spenser’s verse could not altogether vitalize the shadowy abstractions of his didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to the last great work in which personified abstractions reflect to any real extent the original allegorical motive in which they had their origin. Milton achieves his supreme effects in personification in that his figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined impressions rather than clean-cut figures. For nothing can be more dangerous, from the poetic point of view, than the precise figures which attempt to depict every possible point of similarity between the abstract notion and the material representation imagined.[196] It is sometimes considered that the mania for abstraction was due largely to the influence of the two poets who are claimed, or regarded, as the founders or leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope. As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of personification. Dryden has a few abstractions in his original works, such as, Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride And Envy did but look on (“First Epistle”) but his examples are mainly to be found in his modernizations or translations, where of necessity he takes them from his originals.[197] Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even here there is no excess. There is not a single personification in the four pastorals of “The Seasons,” a subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In “Eloisa to Abelard” there are two instances where some attempt at characterization is made.[198] More instances, though none very striking, are to be found in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed group, forming a veritable catalogue of the personified vices which had done so much service in poetry since the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.