sufficient ardor to compel attention; and if
sentimentalism had not been steadily disseminated through other literary
forms, especially the novel, it might well have been regarded as a lost
cause.

The great poet of this decade was Gray, whose _Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard_, by many held the noblest English lyric, appeared in 1751.
His classical ideal of style, according to which poetry should have,
in his words, "extreme conciseness of expression," yet be "pure,
perspicuous, and musical," was realized both in the _Elegy_ and in the
otherwise very different _Pindaric Odes_. The ethical and religious
implications of the _Elegy_, its piety, its sense of the frailties as
well as the merits of mankind, are conservative. Nor is there in the
_Pindaric Odes_ any violation of classical principles. Gray never
deviates into a pantheistic faith, a belief in human perfection, a
conception of poetry as instinctive imagination unrestrained, or any
other essential tenet of sentimentalism. Yet the influence of the new
spirit upon him may be discerned. It modified his choice of subjects, and
slightly colored their interpretation, without causing him to abandon the
classical attitude. The _Elegy_ treats with reverence what the Augustans
had neglected,--the tragic dignity of obscure lives; _The Progress of
Poesy_ emphasizes qualities (emotion and sublimity) which the _Essay on
Criticism_ had not stressed; and _The Bard_ presents a wildly picturesque
figure of ancient days. Gray felt that classicism might quicken its
spirit and widen its interests without surrendering its principles, that
a classical poem might be a popular poem; and the admiration of posterity
supports his belief.

An astounding and epochal event was the publication (1760 ff.) of
the poems attributed to Ossian. Their "editor and translator," James
Macpherson, author of a forgotten sentimental epic, alleged that Ossian
was a Gaelic poet of the third century A.D., who sang the loves and wars
of the heroes of his people, brave warriors fighting the imperial legions
of Rome; and that his poems had been orally transmitted until now,
fifteen centuries later, they had been taken down from the lips of Scotch
peasants. It was a fabrication as ingenious as brazen. As a matter of
fact, Macpherson had found only an insignificant portion of his extensive
work in popular ballads; and what little he had found he had expanded and
changed out of all semblance to genuine ancient