As a poet he had a high
reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to
literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but
what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness
and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He
dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing
out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from
weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his
life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder
sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with
force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the
following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by
greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even
where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a
growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity
require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow
degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and
again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth.
The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest,
Savours too much of private interest:
This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul,
Who for their friends abandoned soul and all;
A greater yet from heaven to hell descends,
To save and make his enemies his friends.
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