After science in the modern sense of the term began to infiltrate the public consciousness in the second half of the seventeenth century, and men were stirred by the new concept of the universe revealed by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, the lesser poets seized joyfully on this inexhaustible source of fresh material and combined pedestrian exposition with ecstatic praise in setting forth the new vision of God's handiwork afforded by the discoveries of science. Among those who thus undertook to interpret the results of science in verse were Young, Akenside, Thomson, and Richard Savage, as well as many lesser writes.