A time of great peace and prosperity, the eighteenthcentury, often called the Age of Reason, gave us some of our finest pastoral poetry and our sharpest satire.

In landscape as in literature, a return to the values ofthe Augustan age was being celebrated: clarity, simplicity and order were praised. London, meanwhile, grew to be the world's largest city, and poets such as Pope and Swift were writing witty, elegant criticism of its politics and its people.

This collection conveys the essence of the period, from the rural meditations and landscape poetry of Thomas Gray and Oliver Goldsmith to the brilliantly scathing couplets of Pope and the uncomfortable truths of Swift. Placing great emphasis on mind and morals, the poetry has a stylistic grace that is evident on each and every page.

Epistle to Miss Blount, on her Leaving the Town, after the Coronation, ALEXANDER POPE

To Their Excellencies the Lords Justices of Ireland, JONATHAN SWIFT

An Ode, MATTHEW PRIOR

A Better Answer to Cloe Jealous, MATTHEW PRIOR

A Description of a City Shower, JONATHAN SWIFT

from The Rape of the Lock: Canto II, ALEXANDER POPE

To Mr Gay, Who Wrote Him a Congratulatory Letter on the Finishing His House, ALEXANDER POPE

'Sir Balaam', from Epistle to Bathurst, ALEXANDER POPE

Ode on Solitude, ALEXANDER POPE

A Nocturnal Reverie, ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA

A Receipt to Cure the Vapours, LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

from Epistle to a Lady: Of the Characters of Women, ALEXANDER POPE

A Short Song of Congratulation, SAMUEL JOHNSON

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General, JONATHAN SWIFT

from An Epistle to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, ALEXANDER POPE

The Dying Christian to His Soul, ALEXANDER POPE

The Day of Judgement. An Ode, ISAAC WATTS

On the Death of Dr Robert Levet, SAMUEL JOHNSON

Excerpts The Death of Dr Swift, JONATHAN SWIFT

Ode, JOSEPH ADDISON

Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ, ISAAC WATTS

Ode to Evening, WILLIAM COLLINS

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, THOMAS GRAY

On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, THOMAS GRAY

On L[or]d H[olland']s Seat near M[argat]e, K[en]t, THOMAS GRAY

A Translation of Benserade's Verse d son Lit, ANON. from Jubilate Agno, CHRISTOPHER SMART

A Morning-piece, or, an Hymn for the Hay-makers, CHRISTOPHER SMART

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, OLIVER GOLDSMITH

from The Deserted Village, OLIVER GOLDSMITH from The Rosciad: [Character of a Critic], CHARLES CHURCHILL

Song (from The School for Scandal), RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, THOMAS GRAY

The Lady Who Offers Her Looking-glass to Venus, MATTHEW PRIOR

The Bard, THOMAS GRAY An Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton, ALEXANDER POPE

Light Shining out of Darkness, WILLIAM COWPER

Hymn to the Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, CHRISTOPHER SMART

from The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society: [Britain], OLIVER GOLDSMITH

How Small, of All That Human Hearts Endure, SAMUEL JOHNSON

The Poplar-field, WILLIAM COWPER

Epitaph on a Hare, WILLIAM COWPER

from The Castaway, WILLIAM COWPER

Verses, Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk...in the Island of Juan Fernandez, WILLIAM COWPER

The Vanity of Human Wishes, SAMUEL JOHNSON

Winter, JAMES THOMSON

Peter Grimes; The Outcast, GEORGE CRABBE