But preaching was not the only method by which, this worthy man promoted the interest of religion; he drew the muses into her service, and that he might work upon the hopes and fears of his readers, he has presented them with four poems, on these important subjects; _Death, Judgment, Heaven_, and _Hell._ The reason of his making choice of those themes on which to write, he very fully explains in his preface. He observes, that however dull, and trite it may be to declaim against the corruption of the age one lives in, yet he presumes it will be allowed by every body, that all manner of wickedness, both in principles and practice, abounds amongst men. 'I have lived (says he) in six reigns, but for about these twenty years last past, the English nation has been, and is so prodigiously debauched, its very nature and genius so changed, that I scarce know it to be the English nation, and am almost a foreigner in my own country. Not only barefaced, impudent, immorality of all kinds, but often professed infidelity and atheism. To slop these overflowings of ungodliness, much has been done in prose, yet not so as to supersede all other endeavours: and therefore the author of these poems was willing to try, whether any good might be done in verse. This manner of conveyance may, perhaps, have some advantage, which the other has not; at least it makes variety, which is something considerable. The four last things are manifestly subjects of the utmost importance. If due reflexions upon Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell, will not reclaim men from their vices, nothing will. This little work was intended for the use of all, from the greatest to the least. But as it would have been intolerably flat, and insipid to the former, had it been wholly written in a stile level to the capacities of the latter; to obviate inconveniences on both sides, an attempt has been made to entertain the upper class of readers, and, by notes, to explain such passages in divinity, philosophy, history, &c. as might be difficult to the lower. The work (if it may be so called) being partly argumentative, and partly descriptive, it would have been ridiculous, had it been possible to make the first mentioned as poetical as the other. In long pieces of music there is the plain recitativo, as well as the higher, and more musical modulation, and they mutually recommend, and set off each other. But about these matters the writer is little sollicitous, and otherwise, than as they are subservient to the design of doing good.'