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    degree at feast , to the peculiarities of hifc religions creed ; What is tbe

    testtttaxmy of his last original eompojattefi in this volume—The Cast-Away ? 5 * 291 We leave the decision with our re&de , rs j only remarking , in the language of Dr . Johnson , that Cowper ' s

    malady , " while for many subsequent years [ after 177 O ] it admitted of his exhibiting the most masterly and delightful display of poetical , epistolary , and conversational ability , on the

    greatest vaiiety of subjects , it constrained him from that period , both in his' conversation arid letters , studiously to abstaiu from every allusion of a religious nature . ' xxvii .

    Our own acquaintance with Cowper ' s poetry , was occasioned by the publication of his Task : our admiration of it has been cherished and increased by a repeated perusal of his Volumes . That as a writer he has

    some defects , it were useless to dispute : these however are of little account , when weighed against his excellencies . It is seldom , after all , that yve meet with so much taste and genius united with a spirit so devotional , benevolent and pure . On this

    ground we recommend CowpeVs > pages to our younger readers in particular , and entreat them > in * estimating his merits , to make just allowances fbr the occasional influence of-a melancholy imagination and ofwha ] fwe humbly think an unscriptural | heofogy . The improvement of the

    niental powers as well as of the heart , can scarcely fail to be the consequence of familiarity with a writer wlio is at once simple and > correct , lively , and energetic , moral and pious * In the present age we have no abundance of models of good composition , either ill poetry or prose . Gaudtness is often substituted ' for ornament : and in

    many instances metaphors are pronouncedjfne merely on account of their being extravagant , unnatural and confused- ~ Propter hoc ipsum , quod sunt vrava , laudhntur . *

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    KIP Itevi €% a *~ - ~ WiUon s Dissenting Churches *

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    present time ; With- 3 n Append on the Origin , Progresa and Pr ^ sent State of Christianity in Britain . 8 vo . 4 vols . Portraits . Button amj Son . 1808—1 S 14 . SOME of our periodical critics affect to smile at the application of the term " Antiquities" to

    Meeting-hoGges . Dr . Milner would be equally amused with its being bestowed or * any thing belonging to the Protestan t Church of England , Some meetinghouses are ancient compared with others that are modern . Protestant

    Episcopal Churches are of a little greyer age ; but for antiquity in it « most venerable sense we must go to periods before the Reformation , and even before Christianity if not before Judaism itself . Westminster Abbey is of yesterday compared with the altars of Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt . In point of age as well as of architecture , meeting-houses are indeed mean subjects of history ; and in this view , no one will condescend to regard them : but there is a light in which they are exceedingly interesting , and invite and will reward the historian :

    they have been places of voluntary assembly to such Christians as havd followed the guidings of conscience , disdained and scornedthe slavery df the mind , and asserted religious liberty , in the midst of perils and by the severest sacrifices ; , In such p laces have been found men of eminent

    biblical learning , of powerful eloquence and of unsullied lives ; the best advocates of divine revelation , the most successful expositors of * evangelical truth * the truest * benefactors of their

    species ; reformers , confessors , martyrs and saints . Their history , is the history of the Bible , of > sound faith and real virtue , and is in our judgment more abundant in all that awakens , purifies and exalts the mind than the history of churches spread

    over empires and ages in which implicit faith on the one part and ecclesiastical tyranny on the other have bound * down the human mind in ignorance , and cramped and fettered th . e heart * and thus prevented the highest exercises of the understanding and the most kindly operation of the affections . The human 1 mind awfflro

    and active , in the humblest conditio n of our nature , is q , fer nobler sight than it can present when laid asleep

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    Aht . IJp—3 ? h& Jfdstory , < md Antiquities oft Disserting Churches and Meeting-Housett in London , Westminster and Southwark ; including the Live . 8 of their Ministers from the Rise of Nonconformity to the ¦ • i . ¦» ¦ ..-,-, . . - l , » — < V _ ,,. -., _ .

    * Qttinct . Instit . L . ii . Sect . 5 .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1816, page 166, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2450/page/38/