Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 1.djvu/84

74 Sacred History has been always read with submissive reverence, and an imagination over-awed and controlled. We have been, accustomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentic narrative, and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence as suppresses curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, and stop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for the purposes of religion, seems not only use less, but in some degree profane.

Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of Divine Power are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle of Creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with little diffusion of language: He spake the word, and they were made.

We are told that Saul was troubled with an evil spirit; from this Cowley takes an opportunity of describing hell, and telling the history of Lucifer, who was, he says,

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