English Poetry in the Eighteenth Century [pp. 30-50]

ENGLISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 47
or some of his satirical portraits, with the rural scenery of the
Deserted Village and the pictures it gives of The Parson and
the Village Schoolmaster. Both in Goldsmith's way of regarding
nature and in his feeling for the poor and despised there is
present some touch of that sentiment of which Rousseau is the
great representative.
The warmer glow that came over the face of our poetry as
the. last century advanced was contemporaneous with another
change in another region of national sentiment. I mean the religious revival which was led by the Wesleys.) We have seen
how the deism that was in the air during the first decades of the
century had chilled the thoughts and hearts even of men who
were by no means deists. But this repression of the vital forces
could not always last. Since Chistrianity first appeared on
earth it has remained the one great storehouse of spiritual influence, whether men used it or not. And as from time to time
the spiritual heart in men wakes up and cries out for more vital
nutriment than either the market or the schools afford, it is to
historical Christianity and its hidden powers that they return.
So it was when thevoices of Wesley and Whitefield were first
heard in the land. It was among the lower order, indeed, that
those fervent voices first found response. Educated society,
the church, and the universities long ignored them. But in time
the new influence reached even these, quickened and remoulded
them. The poets indeed (Collins, Gray, and Goldsmith), and
the literary men among whom they lived, paid no heed to the
new movement, probably despised it. But the glow that revisited their poetry was but another side of the new tide of feeling
that was rising in England-a symptom that men were begin
ning to desire something warmer, deeper, closer to nature and
to the heart than what had satisfied Pope and his generation.
For a time the two streams of poetry and revived religion flowed
apart, and did not touch each other. But religion and poetry
have so much in common that the condition of one must ere
long tell upon that of the other. When religious feeling is cold,
poetry too will be cold. When warmth returns to the religious
life of a people, it will soon consciously or unconsciously affect
the poets, even those who think themselves most indifferent or
opposed to its influence. It was, however, not till the advent