The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XII. The Romantic Revival.

V. Lesser Poets, 1790–1837.

§ 34. James Montgomery.


The same is the case with James Montgomery, whom we might have mentioned with his unlucky namesake in the long-poem division, for he wrote several epics or quasi-epics, which were popular enough, entirely negligible, but not absurd. Some of his hymns, also, such as Go to dark Gethsemane, Songs of praise the angels sang and others, are still popular and not negligible, while he could sometimes, also, write verses (not technically “sacred,” but devoted to the affections and moral feelings which deserve some esteem. James Montgomery is one of the poets who have no irrefragable reason for existing, but whom, as existing, it is unnecessary to visit with any very damnatory sentence.   58