194 Poetry. 



to that of any preceding age. This superiority 1 

 is so remarkable that it must arrest the atten- 

 tion of the most careless observer, and give plea- 

 sure to every friend of human happiness. The 

 age, it is readily admitted, gave birth to much li- 

 centious poetry; but it produced, at the same 

 time, much that exhibits a degree of purity and 

 elevation of sentiment to which the history of lite- 

 rature furnishes no parallel. 



The Night Thoughts, and the Universal Passion, 

 by Dr. Young, are entitled to the first place iri 

 this list. In these works the celebrated author 

 has employed wonderful sublimity and force of 

 imagination, eloquence and cogency of reasoning, 

 and music of numbers, in conveying the most im- 

 portant truths that can engage the attention of 

 mankind. The Ethical Epistles, and some other 

 moral productions of Pope, are models in their 

 kind which have never been excelled. The Vanity 

 of Human Wishes, a poem in imitation of the 

 tenth satire of Juvenal, by Dr. Johnson, has been 

 pronounced as high an effort of ethic poetry as 

 any language can show. The Task, by Mr. Cow- 

 per, is one of the signal honours of the age, in 

 this class of poetic compositions. For purity of sen- 

 timent, chasteness of description, simplicity and 

 energy of style, and a vein of original and well di- 

 rected satire, this work will be admired as long as 

 taste and virtue exist. 



The eighteenth century is also distinguished by 

 the Devotional poetry which it produced. The 

 difficulty of this species of composition has been 

 found and acknowledged, at all periods in which 

 it was undertaken. Before the commencement of 

 the age under consideration, theological doctrines, 

 and portions of sacred history, had been made the 

 subject of poetry, by a number of distinguished 

 writers. Versions of the Psalms had been parti- 



