In many ways Dr. Johnson’s oeuvre can be said to be an organic continuation of the neo-classical tradition. His use of the genre of satire and of imitation, his critical judgments which are based on a thorough awareness of the rules, and the frequent stress he lays on rational control, clearly demonstrate that his artistic convictions are similar to those of his great Augustan predecessors. Moreover, his distrust of human nature and his critique of all excesses caused by pride and self-indulgence also closely resemble the Augustan view of the human condition. By Johnson’s time, however, these views and attitudes were no longer the dominant ones in the literature of the age and especially not in poetry. Indeed, from the mid-eighteenth century we can witness an increasingly conscious turning away from the poetic attitudes and patterns established by Dryden and Pope. This change, as we have seen, can be described in broadest terms as a process of turning inward, a shift of emphasis toward the individual and away from contemporary social reality. In the best poetry of the age this tendency brought about fundamental changes that manifested themselves on several levels.