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
Metaphysical Society much love"; Tennyson, "because after ten years of strenuous effort no one had succeeded in even defining metaphysics." According to Dean Stanley, "We all meant the same thing if we only knew it." The members from first to last were as follows: Citations Metaphysical Society The Metaphysical Society was a British society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles. Many of its members were prominent clergymen. Papers were read and discussed at meetings on such subjects as the ultimate grounds of belief in the objective and moral sciences, the immortality of the soul, etc. A description of one of the meetings