To
complete his mental isolation it appears that having sold his library
he had scarcely any books. Such a course of Christian happiness as
this could only end in one way; and Newton himself seems to have had
the sense to see that a storm was brewing, and that there was no way of
conjuring it but by contriving some more congenial occupation. So the
disciple was commanded to employ his poetical gifts in contributing to
a hymnbook which Newton was compiling. Cowper's Olney hymns have not
any serious value as poetry. Hymns rarely have. The relations of man
with Deity transcend and repel poetical treatment. There is nothing in
them on which the creative imagination can be exercised. Hymns can be
little more than incense of the worshipping soul. Those of the Latin
church are the best; not because they are better poetry than the rest
(for they are not), but because their language is the most sonorous.
Cowper's hymns were accepted by the religious body for which they were
written, as expressions of its spiritual feeling and desires; so far
they were successful.
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