of the future. Warton found odious such things as artificial gardens,
commercial interests, social and legal conventions, and a formal
Addisonian style; he yearned for mountainous wilds, unspoiled savages,
solitudes where the voice of Wisdom was heard above the storms, and
poetry that was "wildly warbled." His younger brother Thomas, who wrote
_The Pleasures of Melancholy_, and sonnets showing an interest in
non-classical antiquities, likewise felt the need of new literary gods to
sanction the practices of their school: Pope and Dryden were accordingly
dethroned; Spenser, Shakespeare, and the young Milton, all of whom were
believed to warble wildly, were invoked.

William Collins was the most gifted of this band of enthusiasts. His
general views were theirs: poetry is in his mind associated with wonder
and ecstacy; and it finds its true themes, as the _Ode on Popular
Superstitions_ shows, in the weird legends, the pathetic mischances, and
the blameless manners of a simple-minded folk remote from cities. Unlike
his fellows, Collins had moments of great lyric power, and gave posterity
a few treasured poems. His further distinction is that he desired really
to create that poetical world about which Akenside theorized and for
which the Wartons yearned. Unhappily, however, he too often peopled it
with allegorical figures who move in a hazy atmosphere; and his melody is
then more apparent than his meaning.

The hopeful spirit of these enthusiasts found little encouragement in the
poems with which the period closed,--Gray's _Ode on Eton_ and _Hymn to
Adversity_, and Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_.

Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,