“It is only within a few years,” wrote Joseph Warton in 1782, “that the picturesque scenes of our own country, our lakes, mountains, cascades, caverns, and castles, have been visited and described."[50] It was in this very year that William Gilpin published his “Observations on the River Wye,” from notes taken upon a tour in 1770.  This was the same year when Gray made his tour of the Wye, and hearing that Gilpin had prepared a description of the region, he borrowed and read his manuscript in June, 1771, a few weeks before his own death.  These “Observations” were the first of a series of volumes by Gilpin on the scenery of Great Britain, composed in a poetic and somewhat over-luxuriant style, illustrated by drawings in aquatinta, and all described on the title page as “Relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty.”  They had great success, and several of them were translated into German and French.[51]

[1] “An Apology for Smectymnuus.”

[2] Lines 162-168.  See also “Mansus,” 80-84.

[3] “What resounds
    In fable or romance of Uther’s son,
    Begirt with British and Armoric knights;
    And all who since, baptized or infidel,
    Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban,
    Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,
    Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore
    When Charlemain with all his peerage fell
    By Fontarabbia.”
           —­Book I, 579-587.

[4] “Faery damsels met in forest wide
    By knights of Logres, or of Lyones,
    Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore.”
           —­Book II, 359-361.

[5] “Masson’s Life of Milton,” Vol.  VI.  P. 789

[6] “Essay on Pope,” Vol.  I. pp. 36-38 (5th edition).  In the dedication to Young, Warton says:  “The Epistles (Pope’s) on the Characters of Men and Women, and your sprightly Satires, my good friend, are more frequently perused and quoted than ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’ of Milton.”

[7] The Rev. Francis Peck, in his “New Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton,” in 1740, says that these two poems are justly admired by foreigners as well as Englishmen, and have therefore been translated into all the modern languages.  This volume contains, among other things, “An Examination of Milton’s Style”; “Explanatory and Critical Notes on Divers Passages of Milton and Shakspere”; “The Resurrection,” a blank verse imitation of “Lycidas,” “Comus,” “L’Allegro” and “Il Penserosa,” and the “Nativity Ode.”  Peck defends Milton’s rhymed poems against Dryden’s strictures.  “He was both a perfect master of rime and could also express something by it which nobody else ever thought of.”  He compares the verse paragraphs of “Lycidas” to musical bars and pronounces its system of “dispersed rimes” admirable and unique.

[8] “Life of Milton.”

[9] “Il Pacifico:  Works of William Mason,” London, 1811, Vol.  I. p. 166.

[10] “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects.”