Page:Studies of a Biographer 1.djvu/113

 has been often reprinted, and is given in Hymns Ancient and Modern. I may infer that it is at least as familiar to my readers as to myself. It probably marks Byrom's highest level, though some other of his religious poems, especially those in which he celebrates his favourite virtue, contentment, have the same charm. They breathe, at least, the sweetness and simplicity of the writer's own character. I will quote one little fragment as at once brief and characteristic:—

The longer pieces, in which Byrom versified Law's works with more or less closeness, come nearer to the conventional style of the period, and drop pretty frequently into the flat of mere rhymed prose. One of the longer, upon 'Enthusiasm,' may be mentioned as symptomatic of an often noticed transformation of meaning. Our ancestors understood by 'enthusiasm' the state