Metaphysical poets still young, introducing into it a string of Metaphysical conceits in the lines beginning “Most souls, ‘tis true, but peep out once an age” which in part echo a passage from Donne's “Second Anniversary”. By the time Pope wrote this, the vogue for the Metaphysical style was over and a new orthodoxy had taken its place, of which the rewriting of Donne's satires was one expression. Nevertheless, Johnson's dismissal of the ‘school’ was still in the future and at the start of the 18th century allusions to their work struck an answering chord in readers. During the course of the
Ebenezer Cooke (poet) Ebenezer Cooke (poet) Ebenezer Cooke ( – ), a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: "The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr" (1708). He was fictionalized by John Barth as the comically innocent protagonist of "The Sot-Weed Factor", a novel in which a series of fantastic misadventures leads Cooke to write his poem. Little is known about the life of Cook (sometimes spelled "Cooke", but spelled Cook in his published works). It is known that Cooke, like the persona of his poem, voyaged to Maryland as a young man. He entered the