Among the minor poets of this period was Stephen Duck (1705–1756). He spent most of his life on a farm where he early began to write verses which attracted much local attention and finally gained for their author substantial favor at Court. His “Thresher’s Labour” is interesting simply because it is a realistic treatment of a homely English theme.[350] Duck’s poems were popular in their own day, but his treatment of Nature is commonplace. The poetry of these four years is interesting because it indicates how early Thomson’s influence made itself felt, as in the work of Mallet and Savage; and also because it shows a use of Nature quite unlike Thomson’s and equally significant of coming tendencies, as in the work of Dyer. THE POETS BETWEEN 1730 AND 1756 The choice of 1756 as the date to mark the close of this period is based on the appearance in that year of Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope.” In the twenty-six years between Thomson’s “Seasons” and this “Essay,” the most important literary works are in prose, as the novels of Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, and the theological writings of Butler, Hume, and Warburton. The period is marked by the establishment of numerous periodicals, by the work of editors, and of compilers. The most important poetry of the period was the “Essay on Man,” “Moral Essays,” and “The Dunciad” by Pope. In writing of this sort there is, of course, little use of external Nature. And it has already been shown that the tragedies of Thomson and the later work of Armstrong, Mallet, and Dyer which appeared during these years, either ignore Nature or treat it in a stiff or simply imitative manner. But there are in the twenty-six years poems that are not only in accord with the changing attitude toward Nature, but that distinctly aid in the evolution of the new conception. The chief names are William Somerville (1675–1742), William Shenstone (1714–63), Matthew Greene, (1696–1737), William Collins (1721–59), William Hamilton (1704–54), Edward Young (1683–1765), Dr. Akenside (1721–70), Thomas Gray (1716–71), Joseph Warton (1722–1800), and Thomas Warton (1728–90). There are other authors whose works are not, as a whole, of importance in this study, but who have written single poems of some significance. Some of these minor poets are Samuel Boyse (1708–49), William Whitehead (1715–85), Dr. John Dalton (1709–63), R. Potter (1721–1804), William Mason (1724–97), Francis Coventry (d. 1759?), Richard Jago (1715–81), Moses Mendes (d. 1758), William Thompson (1712?–66?), Joseph Relph (1712–43), John Gilbert Cooper (1723–69), and Robert Blair (1699–1746).