writings of this poet, the sonnet must be added which he wrote on his last birthday, February 23, 1797, only a few weeks before his death: Again the year on easy wheels has roll'd, To bear me to the term of seventy-two. How Nature, to her Maker's mandates true, Strains not discordant to each moral theme (Best of poetic palms !) my faith supreme In Thee, my God, my Saviour, and my Lord!! It has been before observed that Dr. Johnson (1709–1785) did not believe in the capabilities of devotional verse. For his own part, he possessed few of the more essential qualifications of a poet. 'His poems are the plain and sensible effusions of a mind never hurried beyond itself, to which the use of rhyme adds no beauty, and from which the use of prose would detract no force.' He rests for his fame upon other qualities than those which demand enthusiasm and imaginative power. Nevertheless, the closing lines of his 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' published 1749, are well worthy of being quoted Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain; Works of W. Mason, ii. 131. Anderson's 'Life of Johnson,' British Poets, xi. 822. With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind, Oliver Goldsmith (1729-1774) was not a writer of sacred poetry. But the pure religious tone that runs through the 'Deserted Village,' and the graceful picture it contains of simple unassuming piety, place it on the same high level with Gray's 'Elegy.' Poems such as these could scarcely fail to have a purifying and elevating influence upon the taste of those who read and appreciated them. Shenstone's ‘Schoolmistress,' published in 1741, is a work of somewhat the same order, although its author was so afraid of the subject not being considered dignified enough for poetry, that he has a little disguised, under a certain air of caricature, its genuine simplicity and pathos. Samuel Boyse (1708-1749) was one of those unhappy men in whom good impulses, joined to a weak and ill-regulated disposition, make life a sad alternation of better purposes, relapse, and poignant repentance. He lived in want, and died a pauper. In 1741, he published a poem upon the 'Attributes of Deity,' which Fielding has called 'a very noble one,' of which Pope said that it contained lines which he would willingly have owned, and which James Hervey spoke of in the warmest terms of admiration. This poem passed through a third edition in 1752. It reaches a moderately high level, and keeps it; its language is easy; its tone devotional; but it contains no striking thoughts, and few passages which deserve any special note. Christopher Smart (1722-1771)2 was a writer of very considerable genius. At Cambridge, where he held a fellowship at Pembroke Hall, he five times took the Seatonian prize for a poetical essay upon a sacred subject, and his poems are among the best of that series. There is a want of carefulness and accuracy about them, but much talent, and the glow of warm religious feeling. After Smart had left Cambridge, where he had become very embarrassed in his circumstances, he gained a precarious living in London by literary work, and gained there the friendship and pity of Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, and other distinguished men. A strong predisposition 1 British Poets, xi. 843. 2 Id. xi. to insanity will excuse the fits of reckless extravagance to which he was apt to give way. He composed what was generally considered his finest poem, 'The Song of David,' whilst under confinement as a lunatic, indenting the lines with a key upon the wainscot. No copy of the poem is now, as it appears, known to be extant, but a few stanzas, remarkable for their animation, have been preserved. He sung of God, the mighty source From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes, The world, the clustering spheres He made, The multitudinous abyss Where secrecy remains in bliss, And Wisdom hides her skill. Tell them I am,' Jehovah said At once above, beneath, around, All nature, without voice or sound, Replied, O Lord, 'Thou Art.'1 Amid all his failings, to whatever extent he was responsible for them, he was always keenly sensitive to the emotions whether of friendship or religion. He would often entreat his friends to pray with him and for him, and his religious poems were often written upon his knees. Some remarks will be found in a previous chapter upon John Byrom2 (1691-1763). He was an able man, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Jacobite in politics, warmly attached to the Church of England, yet not so as to be blind to her deficiencies. He had many sympathies in common with the Methodists; but found teaching far more entirely congenial to his mind in the writings of William Law and the French and German mystics. The doctrines most completely repugnant to him were those of Calvinism, and views such as 1 Saunders 303. 2 Chalmers' English Poets, xv. were held by James Hervey and others on Justification and imputed merit. For the rest, he was an earnest, truth-loving man, who thought much for himself on all matters connected with religion, and had little in common with the most prevalent phases of theological thought. As a versifier, he has embodied many sound and suggestive reflections in wretched doggerel, using rhyme as a mere convenience of form. When, however, he set himself to write poetry instead of metrical essays, he showed a power and depth of feeling which place him among the foremost writers of sacred verse in the last century. The following is entitled THE DESPONDING SOUL'S WISH. Another is entitled My spirit longeth for Thee Of so Divine a guest. Of so Divine a guest Unworthy though I be; Unless it come from Thee. Unless it come from Thee, In all that I can see, No rest is to be found. No rest is to be found But in Thy blessed love; THE SOUL's tenDENCY TOWARDS ITS TRUE CENTRE. Stones towards the earth descend; Rivers to the ocean roll; Every motion has some end; What is thine, beloved soul? Mine is, where my Saviour is; There with Him I hope to dwell: Jesu is the central bliss ; Love the force that doth impel. Truly thou hast answer'd right: Now may heaven's attractive grace Speed along thy quickening pace! Thank thee for thy generous care; Now, methinks, aloft I fly; Now with angels bear a part: Glory be to God on high, Peace to every Christian heart. Perhaps, however, the most striking part of John Byrom's poetry is to be found in the series of religious epigrams under the heading 'Miscellaneous Pieces.' Three of them must be quoted : Let thy repentance be without delay. If thou defer it to another day, Thou must repent for one day more of sin, If gold be offered thee, thou dost not say, Faith, Hope, and Love were question'd what they thought Of future glory, which religion taught: Now Faith believed it firmly to be true, And Hope expected so to find it too; Love answer'd, smiling with a conscious glow, His congregational hymns are some of them very indifferent. Yet sometimes, as in that beginning The Lord is my Shepherd, His goodness my song,' there is a swing of words which may cause them to linger in the ear. He was, however, the author of one well-known hymn, the Christmas carol beginning 'Christians, awake, salute the happy morn.' James Merrick (1720–1769), a fellow of Trinity College, VOL. II. 1 In J. Patrick's Collection of Psalms, 1786. X |