e meet with in the Edda!
The Runic poetry abounds in them. Such is Gray's thrilling Ode on the
'Descent of Odin.'"

Warton predicts that Pope's fame as a poet will ultimately rest on his
"Windsor Forest," his "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard," and "The Rape of
the Lock." To this prophecy time has already, in part, given the lie.
Warton preferred "Windsor Forest" and "Eloisa" to the "Moral Essays"
because they belonged to a higher kind of poetry. Posterity likes the
"Moral Essays" better because they are better of their kind. They were
the natural fruit of Pope's genius and of his time, while the others were
artificial. We can go to Wordsworth for nature, to Byron for passion,
and to a score of poets for both, but Pope remains unrivaled in his
peculiar field. In other words, we value what is characteristic in the
artist; the one thing which he does best, the precise thing which he can
do and no one else can. But Warton's mistake is significant of the
changing literary standards of his age; and his essay is one proof out of
many that the English romantic movement was not entirely without
self-conscious aims, but had its critical formulas and its programme,
just as Queen Anne classicism had.

[1] Dr. Johnson had his laugh at this popular person:

"'Hermit hoar, in solemn cell
Wearing out life's evening gray,
Strike thy bosom, sage, and tell
What is bliss, and which the way?'

"Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed,
Scarce suppressed the starting tear:
When the hoary sage replied,
'_Come, my lad, and drink some beer._'"

[2] "Grose's Antiquities of Scotland" was published in 1791, and Burns
wrote "Tam o'Shanter" to accompany the picture of Kirk Alloway in this
work. See his poem, "On the late Captain Grose's Peregrinations through
Scotland."

[3] "Ragnaroek," or "Goetterdaemmerung," the twilight of the Gods

[4] For a full discussion of Gray's sources and of his knowledge of Old
Norse, the reader should consult the appendix by Professor G. L.
Kittredge to Professor W. L. Phelps' "Selections from Gray" (1894, pp.
xl-1.) Professor Kittredge concludes that Gray had but a slight
knowledge of Norse, that he followed the Latin of Bartholin in his
renderings; and that he probably also made use of such authorities as
Torfaeus' "Orcades" (1697), Ole Worm's "Literatura Runica" (Copenhagen,
1636), Dr. George Hickes' monumental "Thesaurus" (Oxford, 1705), and
Robert Sheringham's "De Anglor