s theological side, the Revival had its philanthropic and
moral side; that it abolished the slave trade, and at last slavery;
that it waged war, and effective war, under the standard of the gospel,
upon masses of vice and brutality, which had been totally neglected by
the torpor of the Establishment; that among large classes of the people
it was the great civilizing agency of the time.

Newton was succeeded as curate of Olney by his disciple, and a man of
somewhat the same cast of mind and character, Thomas Scott the writer
of the _Commentary on the Bible_ and _The Force of Truth_. To Scott
Cowper seems not to have greatly taken. He complains that, as a
preacher, he is always scolding the congregation. Perhaps Newton had
foreseen that it would be so, for he specially commended the spiritual
son whom he was leaving, to the care of the Rev. William Bull, of the
neighbouring town of Newport Pagnell, a dissenting minister, but a
member of a spiritual connexion which did not stop at the line of
demarcation between Nonconformity and the Establishment. To Bull
Cowper did greatly take, he extols him as "a Dissenter, but a liberal
one," a man of letters and of genius, master of a fine imagination--or,
rather, not master of it--and addresses him as _Carissime Taurorum_.
It is rather singular that Newton should have given himself such a
successor. Bull was a great smoker, and had made himself a cozy and
secluded nook in his garden for the enjoyment of his pipe. He was
probably something of a spiritual as well as of a physical Quietist,
for he set Cowper to translate the poetry of the great exponent of
Quietism, Madame Guyon. The theme of all the pieces which Cowper has
translated is the same--Divine Love and the raptures of the heart that
enjoys it--the blissful union of the drop with the Ocean--the
Evangelical Nirvana. If this line of thought was not altogether
healthy, or conducive to the vigorous performance of practical duty, it
was at all events better than the dark fancy of Reprobation. In his
admiration of Madame Guyon, her translator showed his affinity, and
that of Protestants of the same school, to Fenelon and the Evangelical
element which has lurked in the Roman Catholic church since the days of
Thomas a Kempis.

CHAPTER IV.

AUTHORSHIP. THE MORAL SATIRES.

Since his recovery, Cowper had been looking out for what he most
needed, a pleasant occupation. He tried drawing, carpentering,
gardening. Of