Metaphysical poets of Wotton himself that prefaced the collection of Wotton's works in 1651. A life of George Herbert followed them in 1670. The links between Donne’s elegists were thus of a different order from those between Donne and his circle of friends, often no more than professional acquaintanceship. And once the poetic style had been launched, its tone and approach remained available as a model for later writers who might not necessarily commit themselves so wholly to it. Metaphysical poets The term metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose
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