of Bishop Hall, of
Norwich--been very vivid and uncompromising. Hall, indeed, was the
Juvenal of his century, filled with the spirit of righteous indignation.

From Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, downwards, the clerical singers who have
not been markedly professional in their outcome have exhibited an
agreeable freedom from monotony. In Donne himself we see the sad
perfection of the metaphysic method, mitigated, however, by a few lapses
into the lucid and the simple. Pomfret gave us in 'The Choice' the
typical poem of the country parson, sounding the praises of rural scenes
and lettered ease. In Parnell we have a sample of the pleasing
versifier, touching nothing which he does not adorn, but making no very
particular impression. Bishop Percy is less celebrated for the ballads
which he wrote than for those which he collected. Logan is remembered
only by his verses on 'The Cuckoo.' To the reverend brothers Warton we
owe respectively 'The Pleasure of Melancholy' and some lines 'To Fancy';
while of Thomas Blacklock, alas! the most remarkable feature was his
blindness. One would like to have forgotten Robert Montgomery, of
Satanic fame, but Macaulay will not let us do so. Blanco White lives on
the strength of one good sonnet, Lisle Bowles on that of many good ones;
and there is no need nowadays to distinguish the work of Crabbe, of
Moultrie, of John Sterling, and of Charles Kingsley, much as they
differed from each other. One of the latest additions to this choir of
voices is Mr. Stopford Brooke, and there are other living lyrists,
belonging to one or other of the Churches, who might be named if there
were no fear of making invidious selection.

There is a certain department of verse-writing in which a cultivated
class like the clergy would of necessity make its mark--that of
rhythmical translation. In a body whose members are all more or less
scholarly, there will always be some, of special scholarship, who will
endeavour to put works of classic or foreign literature into an English
mould. Thus we have had Francis Fawkes, with his versions from the
Greek; Christopher Pitt, with his translation of the 'AEneid'; H. F.
Carey, with his Dante in blank verse; and more others than need be
specified. These clergymen followed the excellent instincts of their
cloth. But what are we to say of those otherwise estimable parsons who
have from time to time attempted, and occasionally with success, to win
fame as the authors of poetical drama