“Idle men and boys are found
Standing on the devil’s ground;
He will give them work to do,
He will pay their wages too.”
Remember also that William Cowper, the poet acclaimed by literary critics as the father of a new movement in poetical writing, issued such a stanza as this:
“Not such as hypocrites suppose
Who with a graceless heart
Taste not of Thee, but drink a dose
Prepared by Satan’s art.”
If the great poets and hymn writers of that age wrote such lines, what must have been the character of the verses of the obscure scribblers and poetasters of their day!