William Lisle Bowles is another of the reputed “fathers” of modern poetry. His slender title to the distinction thus conferred upon him by Rev. George Gilfillan,[514] rests on the admiration of Coleridge,[515] Southey,[516] and Lovel for his early poems.[517] From 1798 to the end of his life Bowles wrote constantly, so the list of his works is a long one; but in the present study we are concerned only with the poems before 1798, the ones that stirred Coleridge to abandon metaphysics for poetry. From fourteen to nineteen years of age Bowles was in Winchester School under the tutelage of Dr. Joseph Warton, who won the boy’s confidence and inspired him with his own tastes. In the “Monody on the Death of Dr. Warton,” written eighteen years after these school days, Bowles says of Warton, Thy cheering voice, O Warton! bade my silent heart rejoice, And wake to love of nature; every breeze On Itchen’s brink was melody; the trees Waved in fresh beauty; ... ... And witness thou Catherine, upon whose foss-encircled brow We met the morning, how I loved to trace The prospect spread around.... So passed my days with new delight. Warton also taught him to love literature. He learned to read Greek poets with “young-eyed sympathy,” and he went with “holier joy” to The lonely heights where Shakespeare sat sublime. Charmed, the lad bent his soul Great Milton’s solemn harmonies to hear. “Unheeded midnight hours” were beguiled by the wild song of Ossian, and his fancy found a “magic spell” in the “Odes” of his master, Dr. Warton. The influences of these early school days had awakened Bowles to love of Nature and of poetry, and when sorrow came it was to Nature and to poetry that he turned for relief. His “Sonnets” are the direct and genuine expression of a personal grief. They were composed, he says, during a tour in which he “sought forgetfulness of the first disappointment in early affections,”[518] and they are pervaded by a melancholy unmistakably real. But along with this deep sadness is a frequent recognition of the power of Nature to give at least temporary respite from grief. Not only does she “steep each sense in still delight,”[519] but she bestows “a soothing charm.”[520] The lovely sights and sounds of morning Touch soft the wakeful nerve’s according string.[521] The river Itchen brings “solace to his heart.”[522] After visiting the Cherwell he says: Whate’er betide, yet something have I won Of solace, that may bear me on serene.[523] In the midst of sorrow he is Thankful that still the landscape beaming bright Can wake the wonted sense of pure delight.[524]