The productions of these later years took for the most part a
didactic rather than a descriptive form. In the volume entitled
_Poems chiefly of Early and Later Years_, published in 1842, were
many hortatory or ecclesiastical pieces of inferior merit, and among
them various additions to the _Ecclesiastical Sketches_, a series of
sonnets begun in 1821, but which he continued to enlarge, spending
on them much of the energies of his later years. And although it is
only in a few instances--as in the description of King's College,
Cambridge--that these sonnets possess force or charm enough to rank
them high as poetry, yet they assume a certain value when we consider
not so much their own adequacy as the greater inadequacy of all
rival attempts in the same direction.
The Episcopalian Churchman, in this country or in the United States,
will certainly nowhere find presented to him in poetical form so
dignified and comprehensive a record of the struggles and the glories,
of the vicissitudes and the edification, of the great body to which
he belongs. Next to the Anglican liturgy--though next at an immense
interval--these sonnets may take rank as the authentic exposition of
her historic being--an exposition delivered with something of her
own unadorned dignity, and in her moderate and tranquil tone.
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