The Nocturnal Reverie, however, is an exception to the general character of Lady Winchelsea's poems, which consist chiefly of odes (including the inevitable Pindaric), fables, songs, affectionate addresses to her husband, poetical epistles, and a tragedy, Aristomenes; or the Royal Shepherd. The Petition for an Absolute Retreat is one of the best pieces in the volume. It displays great facility in versification, and a love of country delights.

Thomas Yalden (1670-1736), born in Exeter, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, entered into holy orders (1711), and was appointed lecturer of moral philosophy. 'Of his poems,' writes Dr. Johnson, 'many are of that irregular kind which, when he formed his poetical character, was supposed to be Pindaric.' Pindarics were indeed the bane of the age. Every minor poet, no matter however feeble his poetical wings might be, endeavoured to fly with Pindar. Like Gay, Yalden tried his skill as a writer of fables.

Note.

Mrs. Veal's Ghost (see pp. 186-187). A curious discovery, made by Mr. G. A. Aitken (see Nineteenth Century, January, 1895), makes it certain, he thinks, that 'the whole narrative is literally true.' He even hopes that the receipt for scouring Mrs. Veal's gown may some day be found. Mr. Aitken seems to infer that Defoe's other tales will also turn out to be true histories, but Defoe avers, with all the seriousness he expends on Mrs. Veal, that he witnessed the great Plague of London, which it is needless to say he did not.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

1667.Swift born.
1672.Steele born.
1672.Addison born.
1674.Milton died.
1688.Gay born.
1688.Pope born.
1688.Bunyan died.
1690.Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
1694.Voltaire born.
1699.Racine died.
1700.Thomson born.
1700.Dryden died.
1700.Fénelon's Télémaque.
1703.John Wesley born.
1704.Locke died.
1704.Addison's Campaign.
1704.Swift's Tale of a Tub and Battle of the Books.
1707.Fielding born.
1709.Johnson born.
1709.Pope's Pastorals.
1709-1711.The Tatler.
1710.Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge.
1711.Pope's Essay on Criticism.
1711-1712,}The Spectator.
and 1714.
1711.Hume born.
1712.Pope's Rape of the Lock.
1712.Rousseau born.
1713.Addison's Cato.
1713.Sterne born.
1714.Mandeville's Fable of the Bees.
1715.Gay's Trivia.
1715-1720.Pope's Translation of Homer's Iliad.
1715.Wycherley died.
1718.Prior's Poems on Several Occasions (folio).
1719-1720.Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (first part).
1719.Addison died.
1721.Prior died.
1721.Smollett born.
1723-1725.Pope's Translation of Homer's Odyssey.
1724.Swift's Drapier's Letters.
1724.Kant born.
1724.Klopstock born.
1725-1730.Thomson's Seasons.
1725.Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd.
1725.Young's Universal Passion.
1726.Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
1727.Gay's Fables.
1728.Pope's Dunciad.
1728.Gay's Beggar's Opera.
1728.Goldsmith born.
1729.Law's Serious Call.
1729.Burke born.
1729.Lessing born.
1729.Steele died.
1731.Defoe died.
1731.Cowper born.
1732-1735.Pope's Moral Essays.
1732-1734.Pope's Essay on Man.
1732.Gay died.
1733-1737.Pope's Imitations of Horace.
1735.Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
1736.Butler's Analogy of Religion.
1737.Gibbon born.
1738.Hume's Treatise of Human Nature.
1740.Cibber's Apology for his Life.
1740.Richardson's Pamela.
1742.Fielding's Joseph Andrews.
1742.Pope's Dunciad (fourth book added).
1742.Young's Night Thoughts.
1743.Blair's Grave.
1744.Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
1744.Pope died.
1745.Swift died.
1748.Thomson died.
1748.Hume's Inquiry concerning Human Understanding.
1748.Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe.
1748.Smollett's Roderick Random.
1749.Goethe born.
1749.Fielding's Tom Jones.

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WRITERS

ADDISON, JOSEPH1672-1719
AKENSIDE, MARK1721-1770
ARBUTHNOT, JOHN1667-1735
ARMSTRONG, JOHN1709-1779
ATTERBURY, FRANCIS1662-1732
BENTLEY, RICHARD1662-1742
BERKELEY, GEORGE1685-1753
BINNING, LORD1696-1732
BLACKMORE, SIR RICHARD1650-1729
BLAIR, ROBERT1699-1746
BOLINGBROKE, LORD1678-1751
BOYLE, CHARLES1676-1731
BROOKE, HENRY1706-1783
BROOME, WILLIAM1689-1745
BUTLER, JOSEPH1692-1752
BYROM, JOHN1691-1763
CHESTERFIELD, LORD1694-1773
CIBBER, COLLEY1671-1757
CLARKE, SAMUEL1675-1729
COLLINS, ANTHONY1676-1729
CRAWFORD, ROBERT1695?-1732
DEFOE, DANIEL1661-1731
DENNIS, JOHN1657-1733-4
DORSET, EARL OF1637-1705-6
DYER, JOHN1698?-1758
EDWARDS, THOMAS1699-1757
FENTON, ELIJAH1683-1730
GARTH, SIR SAMUEL1660-1717-18
GAY, JOHN1685-1732
GLOVER, RICHARD1712-1785
GREEN, MATTHEW1696-1737
HALIFAX, CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF1661-1715
HAMILTON, WILLIAM (OF BANGOUR)1704-1754
HAMMOND, JAMES1710-1742
HILL, AARON1684-1749
HOOKE, NATHANIEL1690-1763
HUGHES, JOHN1677-1719
KING, ARCHBISHOP1650-1729
LAW, WILLIAM1686-1761
LILLO, GEORGE1693-1739
LYTTELTON, GEORGE, LORD1708-1773
MALLET, DAVID1700-1765
MANDEVILLE, BERNARD DE1670?-1733
MIDDLETON, CONYERS1683-1750
MONTAGU, LADY MARY WORTLEY1689-1762
PARNELL, THOMAS1679-1718
PHILIPS, AMBROSE1671-1749
PHILIPS, JOHN1676-1708
POPE, ALEXANDER1688-1744
PRIOR, MATTHEW1664-1721
RAMSAY, ALLAN1686-1758
ROWE, NICHOLAS1673-1718
SAVAGE, RICHARD1698-1743
SHAFTESBURY, LORD1671-1713
SHENSTONE, WILLIAM1714-1764
SOMERVILLE, WILLIAM1692-1742
SPENCE, JOSEPH1698-1768
STEELE, SIR RICHARD1672-1729
SWIFT, JONATHAN1667-1745
THEOBALD, LEWIS1688-1744
THOMSON, JAMES1700-1748
TICKELL, THOMAS1686-1740
WALSH, WILLIAM1663-1708
WARBURTON, WILLIAM1698-1779
WARDLAW, LADY1677-1727
WATTS, ISAAC1674-1748
WESLEY, CHARLES1708-1788
WINCHELSEA, COUNTESS OF1660-1720
YALDEN, THOMAS1670-1736
YOUNG, EDWARD1684-1765