278 OUR HYMNS :
Legislature, in 1807. This work was one of the agencies that have at length led to the entire abolition of slavery itself. " The World before the Flood " appeared in 1813. It is a highly imaginative work, describing the contests of the good and the evil, and the triumphs of the good in the antediluvian age. In 1819 he published " Greenland." This is an historical account of the Moravian missions in that country, but is not so complete as the author at first intended it to be. In 1828 Montgomery pub lished the last of his longer poems, " The Pelican Island," a poetic description of the haunts of the pelican in the island of New Holland. Some of his smaller pieces were very striking, as for instance, " The Common Lot," a piece of ten stanzas, written during a country walk in the snow, on his thirty-fourth birthday. Other works by the poet were " Prose by a Poet," in 182-1. This was a collection of his best prose contributions to the " Iris," with other original pieces ; " A Poet s Portfolio," in 1835 ; and his collected works were afterwards published. He had been a contributor to the " Eclectic Review " in its palmiest days. In 1830-31 he delivered a course of " Lectures on Poetry and General Literature," at the Royal Institution. These were published in 1833, and about the same time he received a royal pension of 200 a year.
Montgomery lived for many years in an old house, the " Iris " office, in a central part of Sheffield, but in his later years he went to reside at the well-known " Mount," at the west end of Sheffield, where many eminent literary persons visited him. Like Cowper, Montgomery never married. Trained under the best religious in fluences, and never losing those influences, the poet, even up to his thirty-sixth year, speaks of his unbelief and religious despon dency in affecting words that remind us of Cowper. And he de layed his formal public profession of religion till his forty- third year, when he became a member of the Moravian Church. The letters of Daniel Parkin, the editor of the "Eclectic Review," afforded him important assistance in arriving at religious decision. He was also indebted to the sermons of the hymn- writer Cennick,
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