Note 96 — Chapter IV · (continued 3)

If any one would read a description of this process, enlivened and enforced by the powers of the most exquisite poetry, let him peruse the middle and latter part of the fifth Book of Cowper’s Task. My warm attachment to the exquisitely natural compositions of this truly Christian poet may perhaps bias my judgment; but the part of the work to which I refer appears to me scarcely surpassed by any thing in our language. The honourable epithet of Christian may justly be assigned to a poet, whose writings, while they fascinate the reader by their manifestly coming from the heart, breathe throughout the spirit of that character of Christianity, with which she was announced to the world; “Glory to God, peace on earth, good will towards men.”