William Ellery Channing, 1780-1842, was a distinguished clergyman and
orator. He took a leading part in the public affairs of his day, and wrote
and lectured eloquently on several topics.
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It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only
extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests
and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered
beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys; and in this
he does well, for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by
cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures
which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a
higher being.