I make all the concessions I can, that I may please them, but I will not please them at the expense of conscience." The passages of _The Task_ penned by conscience, taken together, form a lamentably large proportion of the poem.

An ordinary reader can be carried through them, if at all, only by his interest in the history of opinion, or by the companionship of the writer, who is always present, as Walton is in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne.

Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous.

He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered.

Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody.