Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that of Johnson, in that both deal to some extent with what would now be called social problems. But it is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position in eighteenth century poetry as representing a sort of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of poetical style, between the classical conventional language and the free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth, that there are few examples of personified abstractions in his works, and these confined mainly to one passage in “The Traveller”: Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc. At this point it is necessary to hark back for the purpose of considering other works which had been appearing alongside of the works just discussed. It has already been remarked that in this matter of the use of abstraction and personification the influence of Milton early asserted itself, and there can be no doubt that a good deal of it may be traced to the influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed, the blank verse poems, which attempted to imitate or parody the “grand style” of the great epics, furnish few examples of the personified abstraction. The first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder” of John Philips (1705-1706) contains but few instances. In Somerville’s “Chase” there is occasionally a commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,” though in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into the conventional style quickly enough. In the rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion” (1738), and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744), comparatively little use is made of the device, a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of Rome” (1740), and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane” (1764). The fashion for all these blank verse poems had been started largely by the success of “The Seasons,” which appeared in its original form from 1726 to 1730, to undergo more than one revision and augmentation until the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s work shows very many traces of the influence of Milton, there is no direct external evidence that his adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence. Perhaps, as has been suggested,[204] he was weary of the monotony of the couplet, or at least considered its correct and polished form incapable of any further development. At the same time it is clear that having adopted “rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard Milton as a model of diction and style, though he was by no means a slavish imitator.