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
Richard Leigh (poet) Richard Leigh (poet) Richard Leigh (1650–1728) was an English poet of gentry stock. His work is regarded as metaphysical poetry. He engaged in a pamphlet dispute with John Dryden. He was the younger son of Sir Edward Leigh (1603–1671), of Rushall, Staffordshire (a scion of the ancient family of West Hall, High Legh, Cheshire and a cousin of the Lords Leigh), and Elizabeth Talbot (died 1707), a relative of the Earls of Shrewsbury. In 1666, aged sixteen, he entered Queen's College, Oxford. Sources rumor that, after university, Leigh left Oxford for London and became an actor in the Duke of