Each indeed marked an advance upon all that English descriptive or didactic poets had thus far contributed towards making humble life and rural scenery attractive--unless we except the _Allegro_ of Milton and some passages in Thomson's _Seasons_.

Nor was it merely the consummate workmanship of Gray and Goldsmith that had made their popularity.

The genuineness of the pathos in the two poems was beyond suspicion, although with Gray it was blended with a melancholy that was native to himself.

Although their authors had not been brought into close personal relations with the joys and sorrows dealt with, there was nothing of sentiment, in any unworthy sense, in either poet's treatment of his theme.

But the result of their studies of humble village life was to produce something quite distinct from the treatment of the realist.