Page:The Essays of George Eliot, ed. Sheppard, 1883.djvu/266



To conclude—for we must arrest ourselves in a contrast that would lead us beyond our bounds: Young flies for his utmost consolation to the day of judgment, when

when earth, stars, and sun are swept aside,

Dr. Young and similar "ornaments of religion and virtue" passing of course with grateful "applause" into the upper region. Cowper finds his highest inspiration in the Millennium—in the restoration of this our beloved home of earth to perfect holiness and bliss, when the Supreme

And into what delicious melody his song flows at the thought of that blessedness to be enjoyed by future generations on earth!

The sum of our comparison is this: In Young we have the type of that deficient human sympathy, that impiety toward the present and the visible, which flies for its motives, its sanctities, and its religion, to the remote, the vague, and the unknown: in Cowper we have the type of that genuine love which cherishes things in proportion to their nearness, and feels its reverence grow in proportion to the intimacy of its knowledge.