“the courtly silken lay,” “the polished lyrics,” of his own day. But it is in his prose that we find the best evidence of his break with the classicists. In the dedication prefixed to the “Essay on Pope” (1756) he divided English poets into four classes, putting in the first class only Spenser, Shakspere, and Milton. Of Pope he said, “I revere the memory of Pope; I respect and honor his abilities, but I do not think him at the head of his profession.” He then proceeded to show the difference “betwixt a man of wit, a man of sense, and a true poet.” In the first and second sections of the “Essay” he minutely discusses Pope’s descriptive poetry showing that his idea of pastoral poetry as representing some golden age was but “an empty notion,” and commenting severely on his mixture of British and Grecian ideas. He condemns “Windsor Forest” because its images are “equally applicable to any place whatsoever.” In contrast with Pope he puts Thomson, of whose “Seasons” he gives a most discriminating eulogy. It is too long to quote entire, but a part of it must be given if only to show its remarkably modern tone. Thomson was blessed with a strong and copious fancy; he hath enriched poetry with a variety of new and original images, which he painted from nature itself, and from his own actual observations; his descriptions have, therefore, a distinctness and truth, which are utterly wanting to those of poets who have only copied from each other, and have never looked abroad on the objects themselves. Thomson was accustomed to wander away into the country for days, and for weeks, attentive to “each rural sight, each rural sound,” while many a poet, who has dwelt for years in the Strand, has attempted to describe fields and rivers, and generally succeeded accordingly. Hence that nauseous repetition of the same circumstances; hence that disgusting impropriety of introducing what may be called a set of hereditary images, without proper regard to the age, or climate, or occasion in which they were formerly used.... And if our poets would accustom themselves to contemplate fully every object, before they attempted to describe it, they would not fail of giving their readers more new and complete images than they generally do.[399]