.

Long before these principles were reduced into formal canons of
orthodoxy, even while they encountered the strong opposition of
critics, they were unconsciously recognised by Englishmen as sound
and national. Yet I question whether a clergyman writing in
conformity with them might not have incurred censure in former
times, and may not incur it now. The privilege of expressing his
own thoughts, sufferings, sympathies, in any form of verse is easily
conceded to him; if he liked to use a dialogue instead of a
monologue, for the purpose of enforcing a duty, or illustrating a
doctrine, no one would find fault with him; if he produced an actual
Drama for the purpose of defending or denouncing a particular
character, or period, or system of opinions, the compliments of one
party might console him for the abuse or contempt of another.

But it seems to be supposed that he is bound to keep in view one or
other of these ends: to divest himself of his own individuality
that he may enter into the working of other spirits; to lay aside
the authority which pronounces one opinion, or one habit of mind, to
be right and another wrong, that he may exhibit them in their actual
strife; to deal with questions, not in an abstract shape, but mixed
up with the affections, passions, relations of human creatures, is a
course which must lead him, it is thought, into a great
forgetfulness of his office, and of all that is involved in it.

No one can have less interest than I have in claiming poetical
privileges for the clergy; and no one, I believe, is more thoroughly
convinced that the standard which society prescribes for us, and to
which we ordinarily conform ourselves, instead of being too severe
and lofty, is far too secular and grovelling. But I apprehend the
limitations of this kind which are imposed upon us are themselves
exceedingly secular, betokening an entire misconception of the
nature of our work, proceeding from maxims and habits which tend to
make it utterly insignificant and abortive. If a man confines
himself to the utterance of his own experiences, those experiences
are likely to become every day more narrow and less real. If he
confines himself to the defence of certain propositions, he is sure
gradually to lose all sense of the connection between those
propositions and his own life, or the life of man. In either case
he becomes utterly ineffectual as a teacher. Those whose education
and character are different fr