that in adapting a Latin description of the Eurotas to serve him in a description of the Thames, he changed “laurels” to “willows”.[261] In spite of these indications of a desire to be true to Nature, it is to Pope’s prose rather than his poetry that we must turn for any real influence in favor of simplicity and truth in the presentation of natural facts. Though in reading Pope’s letters every statement is instinctively taken _cum grano salis_, because of his known insincerity and striving after effect, we now and then strike passages that have a genuine tone of pleasure in such mild forms of Nature as his physical condition enabled him to know.[262] Addison’s “Essays” also show real delight in the milder forms of the external world. “A beautiful prospect,” he says, “delights the soul as much as a demonstration.” “A man of polite imagination often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows than another does in the possession.”[263] We note, too, his pleasure in wide views,[264] in sunset,[265] and in spring.[266] He also deprecated the use of pagan mythology as meaningless in the poetry of a Christian nation,[267] and he heartily praised Ambrose Philips’ attempts to confine English pastorals to English scenes.[268] And finally, both Pope and Addison were strong influences in bringing about the change from the formal to the natural school of gardening.[269] SUMMARY In a statement of the influences in this period that make for a new spirit toward Nature we must not forget that it was in reality a classical period, most of its tendencies and all of its best work being classical. The indications of the new spirit are fugitive, occasional, and usually unconscious. With this proviso, we may sum up the new tendencies. The change from the formal to the natural school of gardening was begun in this period, and owed much to Pope and Addison. The artificial shepherds and shepherdesses of the conventional pastoral were supplanted by real English and Scottish peasants, as in the work of Ambrose Philips, Gay, and Ramsay. There was a growing sense of the beauty and charm of the external world, as in Lady Winchilsea, Parnell, and Ramsay. In most of the poets mentioned in this period there was a new quickness and minuteness of observation leading to a wider knowledge of natural facts. There was appreciative recognition of new aspects of Nature, as night and winter. There was not lacking a hint of the romantic note of melancholy which later became one characteristic of the poetry of Nature. And there was recognition of the spiritual potencies in the external world. There was also an occasional self-conscious statement of new principles, as humorously in Gay, seriously in Ramsay, and casually in Pope and Addison. THE POETS BETWEEN 1726 AND 1730