t than poetry? Dr
Johnson's theory would hush the "New Song" itself, and perpetuate that
silence which was once in heaven "for half-an-hour."

Long before the Doctor vented this paradox, Cowley, in his preface to
his poems, had written the following eloquent and memorable sentences on
this subject:--"When I consider how many bright and magnificent subjects
Scripture affords, and proffers, as it were, to poesy, in the wise
managing and illustrating whereof the glory of God Almighty might be
joined with the singular utility and noblest delight of mankind, it is
not without grief and indignation that I behold that divine science
employing all her inexhaustible riches of wit and eloquence, either in
the wicked and beggarly flattering of great persons, or the unmanly
idolising of foolish women, or the wretched affectation of scurril
laughter, or the confused dreams of senseless fables and metamorphoses.
Amongst all holy and consecrated things which the devil ever stole and
alienated from the service of the Deity--as altars, temples, sacrifices,
prayers, and the like--there is none that he so universally and so long
usurped as poetry. It is time to recover it out of the tyrant's hands,
and to restore it to the kingdom of God, who is the Father of it. It is
time to baptize it in Jordan, for it will never become clean by bathing
in the waters of Damascus.

"What can we imagine more proper for the ornaments of wit and learning
in the story of Deucalion than in that of Noah? Why will not the actions
of Samson afford as plentiful matter as the Labours of Hercules?
(Perhaps from this Milton took the hint of writing his "Samson
Agonistes.") Why is not Jephtha's daughter as good a woman as Iphigenia?
and the friendship of David and Jonathan more worthy celebration than
that of Theseus and Pirithous? Does not the passage of Moses and the
Israelites into the Holy Land yield incomparably more poetic variety
than the voyages of Ulysses and Aeneas? Are the obsolete, threadbare
tales of Thebes and Troy half so well stored with great, heroical, and
supernatural actions (since verse will needs find or make such), as the
wars of Joshua, of the Judges, of David, and divers others? Can all the
transformations of the gods give such copious hints to flourish and
expatiate on as the true miracles of Christ, or of His prophets and
apostles? What do I instance in these few particulars? All the books in
the Bible are either already most admirable an