* * * * * I view with wonder and delight, A pleasing tho’ an awful sight. Of Keswick and Skiddaw he writes, Thy roofs, O Keswick, brighter rise! The lake and lofty hills between, Where giant Skiddow shuts the scene. Supreme of mountains, Skiddow, hail! To whom all Britain sinks a vale! Lo, his imperial brow, I see From foul usurping vapors free! ’Twere glorious now his side to climb, Boldly to scale his top sublime. There are several passages in the poem indicative of Dr. Dalton’s unusually close study of streams, especially those near Lowther Castle, and in the picturesque valley of Borrowdale. With evident delight he traces the stream from its mountain source, over tuneful falls, under broad spreading boughs, along silent meadows, to the wide lake. There is also a fine passage descriptive of a patriarchal oak near Lowther. It is the first sustained description of a specific tree with anything like the modern feeling. It is represented as standing in a “sunny plain alone.” Its reverend age, its majesty, are especially dwelt upon. The poem shows some excellent first-hand observation. Dr. Dalton is ahead of Wordsworth in noticing the “azure roofs” of the lowly cottages. And he should have the credit of discovering the beauty of the vale of Derwentwater, and the majesty of giant Skiddaw, fourteen years before Gray made his famous tour, and nearly half a century before the Lake poets set up their monopoly. The most important work of this period was doubtless that of the Warton brothers. Their father was also a poet, and he struck the romantic note in his hatred of city life and his longing for solitude in the country. Joseph Warton had a long literary career during which he edited books, wrote poems, and contributed articles to periodicals. Those of his poems that were of especial note in the history of Romanticism were written early in life, between 1740 and 1753. “The Enthusiast” (1740), “Odes on Various Subjects” (1746), and “Ode on Mr. West’s Translation of Pindar” (1744) are the chief ones to be studied. In these poems there are many summaries of such objects in Nature as give pleasure, but there is little actual description. In details and phraseology there are frequent echoes from Milton and Thomson.[393] In general, though unoriginal in expression, the poems are marked by an unmistakably genuine love of Nature, and of Nature untouched by man. The poet dislikes Versailles whose fountains cast The tortur’d waters to the distant heav’ns.[394] Even Kent-- Though he, by rules unfettered, boldly scorns Formality and method, round and square Disdaining, plans irregularly great,[395]