inations of _three_
leading ideas--light, motion, and music--as if he feared to introduce
anything more gross and earthly, and would rather be censured, as
doubtless he often is, for coldness and poverty of invention. Whereas
Milton, with very little selection or refinement, transfers to the
immediate neighbourhood of God's throne the imagery of Paradise and
Earth. Indeed he seems himself to have been aware of something
unsatisfactory in this, and has inserted into the mouth of an angel,
a kind of apology for it:

Though what if earth
Be but the shadow of heav'n, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

These are blemishes, and sometimes almost tempt us to wish that even
Milton had taken some subject not so immediately and avowedly
connected with religion. But they do not affect his claim to be
considered as the very lodestar and pattern of that class of sacred
poets in England. As such we have here considered him next to Spenser;
not that there were wanting others of the same order before him. In
fact, most of the distinguished names in the poetical annals of
Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, might be included in the list. It
may be enough just to recollect Drayton and Cowley, Herbert, Crashaw
and Quarles.

The mention of these latter names suggests the remark, how very
desirable it is to encourage as indulgent and, if we may so term it,
_catholic_ a spirit as may be, in poetical criticism. From having been
over-praised in their own days, they are come now to be as much
undervalued; yet their quaintness of manner and constrained imagery,
adopted perhaps in compliance with the taste of their age, should
hardly suffice to overbalance their sterling merits. We speak
especially of Crashaw and Quarles: for Herbert is a name too venerable
to be more than mentioned in our present discussion.

After Milton, sacred poetry seems to have greatly declined, both in
the number and merit of those who cultivated it. No other could be
expected from the conflicting evils of those times: in which one party
was used to brand everything sacred with the name of Puritanism, and
the other to suspect every thing poetical of being contrary to
morality and religion.

Yet most of the great names of that age, especially among the
Romanists, as Dryden, Pope, and before them Habington, continued to
dedicate some of their poetry to religion. By their faith they were
remote from the controve