Referring to his translations, it has been very justly said that he seldom translates or imitates a heathen poet but he either makes him a Christian in the end, or shows his deficiency in not being one. He consistently maintained throughout his writings, as a poet, the determination expressed in the lines—
Thy name, Almighty Sire, and Thine,
Jesus, where His full glories shine,
Shall consecrate my lays.[13]
His familiar method of remembering the signs of the Zodiac is an illustration of the rapid and neat way in which he could bind up knowledge in a verse:
The ram, the bull, the heavenly twins,
And next the crab the lion shines,
The virgin and the scales;
The archer, scorpion, and the goat,
The man that holds the water-pot,