Metaphysical poets was established, however, it was occasionally adopted by other and especially younger poets to fit appropriate circumstances. In the chapter on Abraham Cowley in his "Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets" (1779–81), Samuel Johnson refers to the beginning of the seventeenth century in which there "appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets". This does not necessarily imply that he intended "metaphysical" to be used in its true sense, in that he was probably referring to a witticism of John Dryden, who said of John Donne: He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires,
Richard Leigh (poet) York's or King's Company. There were two other actors named "Leigh" during that period in the company, Anthony Leigh and John Leigh, but no records of a Richard Leigh in either company survive. While he was a young man, Leigh wrote a prose tract attacking poet John Dryden (1631–1700), entitled "The Censure of the Rota on Mr. Dryden's Conquest of Granada, an attack which annoyed Dryden who subsequently called Leigh "the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford". Some of Leigh's works include "Poems on Several Occasions and to Several Persons", "Greatness in Little" (1675), "Sleeping on her Couch", and "The Eccho". His