The Dispensary, published in 1699, is the one work which gives him his place. It deals with a long-defunct squabble between physicians and apothecaries, and its importance is due to its being written in a kind of heroic couplet that is a link in style between Dryden and Pope.
5. Richard Savage (1697–1743). Savage’s melancholy fate, and his early friendship with Johnson, have given him a prominence that he scarcely deserves. He was born in London, and, according to his own story, was the child of Richard Savage, Earl Rivers. Savage passed his youth in miserable circumstances, took to hack-work with the publishers, besotted himself with drink and debauchery, and died in a debtor’s prison in Bristol.
His two chief poems are The Bastard (1728) and The Wanderer (1729). Both are written in the heroic couplet, and consist of long frenzied moralizings of his own unhappy lot. These works have much energy and some power of expression, but they are diffuse and rhetorical in style. Savage cannot rid himself of his personal grievances, which, inflamed by his dissipations, produce a morbid extravagance that ruins his work as poetry.
6. Lady Winchilsea (1661–1720). Born in Hampshire, the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, Anne, Countess of Winchilsea, passed most of her life in London, where she became acquainted with Pope and other literary notables. Some of her poems, which were of importance in their day, are The Spleen (1701), a Pindaric ode; The Prodigy (1706); and Miscellany Poems (1714), containing the Nocturnal Reverie.
Wordsworth says, “It is remarkable that, excepting the Nocturnal Reverie and a passage or two in Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and The Seasons does not contain a single new image of nature.” This statement is perhaps an exaggeration, but there is no doubt that Lady Winchilsea had the gift of producing smooth and melodious verse, and she had a discerning eye for the beauties of nature.
7. Ambrose Philips (1675–1749). Philips was a Shropshire man, was educated at Cambridge, and became a considerable figure in the literary world. He was a friend of Pope, and wrote Pastorals (1709), which Pope damned with faint praise. The two poets quarreled, and Pope gave the other immortality in The Dunciad. Philips obtained several posts under the Government, and passed a happy and prosperous life.
He wrote three tragedies, the best of which is The Distressed Mother (1712). He produced a fair amount of prose for the periodicals, and his miscellaneous verse, of a light and agreeable kind, was popular in its day. His poetry was called “namby-pamby,” from his Christian name; and the word has survived in its general application.
8. Sir Richard Blackmore (1650–1729). Blackmore was an industrious physician, and an industrious and unsuccessful poet. His name became a byword by reason of his huge, dreary epics, which he composed in his spare time. Some of them are Prince Arthur (1695), Job (1700), and The Creation (1712). They are written in tolerable heroic couplets.
9. Thomas Parnell (1679–1718). Parnell was born in Ireland, entered the Church, became an archdeacon, and prospered in his post. His poems consist of miscellaneous work, and were extremely popular in their day. The best of his work is contained in The Hermit (1710), which is written in heroic couplets, and in places reminds the reader of The Deserted Village. He shows skill as a versifier, and he has a genuine regard for nature.
10. Allan Ramsay (1686–1758). Born in Lanarkshire, Ramsay came to Edinburgh at the age of fifteen, and became a wig-maker. He soon took to writing verses, which admitted him into the society of the Edinburgh wits. He started a bookseller’s shop in the city, and became a kind of local unofficial Poet Laureate. His ballads became very popular, and he brought upon himself the notice of the leaders of the literary world in London.