at I
scarce know it to be the English nation, and am almost a foreigner in
my own country. Not only barefaced, impudent, immorality of all kinds,
but often professed infidelity and atheism. To slop these overflowings
of ungodliness, much has been done in prose, yet not so as to supersede
all other endeavours: and therefore the author of these poems was
willing to try, whether any good might be done in verse. This manner of
conveyance may, perhaps, have some advantage, which the other has not;
at least it makes variety, which is something considerable. The four
last things are manifestly subjects of the utmost importance. If due
reflexions upon Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell, will not reclaim men
from their vices, nothing will. This little work was intended for the
use of all, from the greatest to the least. But as it would have been
intolerably flat, and insipid to the former, had it been wholly written
in a stile level to the capacities of the latter; to obviate
inconveniences on both sides, an attempt has been made to entertain the
upper class of readers, and, by notes, to explain such passages in
divinity, philosophy, history, &c. as might be difficult to the lower.
The work (if it may be so called) being partly argumentative, and partly
descriptive, it would have been ridiculous, had it been possible to make
the first mentioned as poetical as the other. In long pieces of music
there is the plain recitativo, as well as the higher, and more musical
modulation, and they mutually recommend, and set off each other. But
about these matters the writer is little sollicitous, and otherwise,
than as they are subservient to the design of doing good.'

A good man would naturally wish, that such generous attempts, in the
cause of virtue, were always successful. With the lower class of
readers, it is more than probably that these poems may have inspired
religious thoughts, have awaked a solemn dread of punishment, kindled a
sacred hope of happiness, and fitted the mind for the four last
important period[1]; But with readers of a higher taste, they can have
but little effect. There is no doctrine placed in a new light, no
descriptions are sufficiently emphatical to work upon a sensible mind,
and the perpetual flatness of the poetry is very disgustful to a
critical reader, especially, as there were so many occasions of rising
to an elevated sublimity.

The Dr. has likewise written a Paraphrase on the 104th Psalm, which,
though