Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/166

162 Mrs. Thrale tells how, when Johnson would try to repeat the Dies Irae, ‘he could never pass the stanza ending thus, Tantus labor non sit cassus, without bursting into a flood of tears; which sensibility (she adds) I used to quote against him when he would inveigh against devotional poetry.’ And the best hymns of Watts deserve a larger allowance of praise than they receive from Johnson. Yet Watts in his religious poetry does illustrate the truth of Johnson’s remarks. He is often splendid, but it is a monotonous and vague splendour. There is usually no progress in his theme, so that the order of his verses might be rearranged, and new poems compounded by selection, without loss of meaning. The following verses, taken from scattered places in the Poems Sacred to Devotion and Piety, show the author’s metaphysical grasp. Some of them describe the Godhead:

Some of them are addressed to the Godhead: