val than even Whitefield did with all his burning
eloquence, or Wesley with all his indomitable activity. For those who
despised Whitefield and Wesley as mere vulgar fanatics, those who would
never have read a word of what Newton or Romaine wrote, those who were
too much prejudiced to be affected by the preaching of any of the
Evangelical clergy, could not refrain from reading the works of one who
was without question the first poet of his day. This is not the place to
criticise Cowper's poetry; but it may be remarked that that poetry
exercised an influence greater than that which its intrinsic
merits--great though these were--could have commanded, owing to the fact
that Cowper was the first who gave expression to the reaction which had
set in against the artificial school of Pope. Men were becoming weary of
the smooth rhymes, the brilliant antitheses, the flash and the glitter,
the constant straining after effect, carrying with it a certain air of
unreality, which had long been in vogue. They welcomed with delight a
poet who wrote in a more easy and natural, if a rougher and less
correct, style. Cowper was, in fact, the father of a new school of
poetry--a school of which Southey, and Coleridge, and Wordsworth were in
the next generation distinguished representatives. But almost all that
Cowper wrote (at least of original composition) was subservient to one
great end. He was essentially a Christian poet, and in a different sense
from that in which Milton, and George Herbert, and Young were Christian
poets. As Socrates brought philosophy, so Cowper brought religious
poetry down from the clouds to dwell among men. Not only does a vein of
piety run through all his poetry, but the attentive reader cannot fail
to perceive that his main object in writing was to recommend practical,
experimental religion of the Evangelical type. He himself gives us the
keynote to all his writings in a beautiful passage,[815] in which he
describes the want which he strove to supply.

Pity, religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where'er she deigned to stray,
And every muse attend her in her way.
Virtue, indeed, meets many a rhyming friend,
And many a compliment politely penned;
But unattired in that becoming vest
Religion weaves for her, and half undressed.
Stands in the desert, shivering and forlorn,
A wintry figure, like a withered thorn.

But while