When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators
than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any
remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham,
Cowley, Cleveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way
to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the
metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cowley
adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment
and more music. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded
in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley;
Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it.
Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples, and I
have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which
this species of poets, for poets they were called by themselves and
their admirers, was eminently distinguished.
As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired
than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of
learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry.
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