"While he surveys the much-loved spot, Because his journey's end is seen." Why the censorious scissors should have clipped on each side of that verse, is hard to say; and why the last verse has had two of its rhymes pulled off and others set, and why "Assured our home will make amends," was too bad to be suffered to stand, is harder to say. If these diligent hands had busied themselves with some of the bad rhymes which are palpable to any ordinary ear, they would have been better employed than in making rhymes of their own and putting them where they bring no improvement. The lines, "Now the shades of night are gone, Now the morning light is come," would have given them very pretty work, and worthy of them; and there are others that want looking to and setting right. Yet it would not be safe to set the common sort of compilers even at this work; for if they were let loose at false rhymes, with no overlooking, then many a great, full-sounding line, that, with its majestic movement, goes on unheeding of the exact chord of its companion, would be brought straight down to monotony, and kept there. Fastening upon that 50th Hymn, before referred to, they would clutch, this way and that, rhyme after rhyme, and wrench it off. "No midnight shade, no clouded sun," might become, under their hand, "No clouded sun, no misty moon," to rhyme with "Sacred, high, unclouded noon." No; on the whole, we withdraw part of our prohibition. Let them rather make bad rhymes of their own; only let them not foist them upon Hymns of others. A more important thing than changing bad or imperfect rhymes, is the doing away with bad Grammar. "Since I've known a Savior's name, And sin's strong fetters broke, by whomever written, is not honest Grammar, and could in the easiest way be made right: the phrase "When Jehovah's work begun," in Montgomery's very spirited lines, is entirely wrong, of course, and might, with a little trouble, be corrected, and so of others. Mere grammatical mistakes ought not to be consecrated in the Church Service; while there are archaisms in the English Prayer Book—and, here and there, in our own, following the English,-that no lover of our historic tongue, and no one who rejoices to feel, in scaling the spiritual path, through our Prayers and Psalms, the very knobs and roughness, by which with foot and hand, Ridley and Latimer climbed up the heights of devotion, would be willing to have done away.* Some of these may be found, also, in metrical Psalms and Hymns, yet sung among men. In the General Convention of the year 1859, a joint Committee was appointed "to consider and report, at the next General Convention, upon the whole subject of the Hymnody," &c., "and especially to enquire and report whether any improvements can be introduced into our present Collection." In pursuance of their duties the Committee have gathered together a volume of Hymns, which they think might well be added to those in present use, which they have published for the information of the Church. The ground of such an appointment as that of this Committee is, of course, the general feeling in the Church, that the Collection of Hymns in our Prayer Book, however good, is not so good as it may be made; and we believe the fact to be, that not only very many of us are conscious that a few of our Hymns are rivalled in tameness and dryness of thought and expression by scarcely any, elsewhere, except some of those in the Roman Breviary, but also are constantly impressed by the marvellous life and force and beauty of many that we meet outside of the number of our own. That there is a like feeling about our book of Metrical Selections of the Psalms, is, we believe, also unquestionable; and these were made, with the Hymns, a subject for the Committee's labors. The book which they have published professes only to contain Hymns, and as we propose to devote the rest * We have in mind the taking up, at some time to come, of the subject of praying and Forms of Prayer in our Church. 5 VOL. XIV.NO. I. of our room to the consideration of their volume, we will say little, here, of Metrical Psalms. We have, in the Book of Common Prayer, a Version of the Psalter, for the most part poetical, in English Prose: we have, also, a Version of some of the Psalms in English rhyme, for the most part unpoetical. A rubric requires, that "whenever the Hymns are used at the celebration of Divine Service, a certain portion or portions of the Psalms of David in met:e shall also be sung ;" and the practice is general to sing once from the Metrical Psalms and once from the Hymns. Now, what Bishop Compton, as quoted by the Committee, says, on the occasion of recommending the new Version, (Tate & Brady's,) about an unhappy objection having lain against the singing-Psalms, and what he implies of the want of "devotion" attaching to "that part of divine service," will, most likely, always be deserved. There are only a few of the Psalms, in any Version, that are well put into English verse, or that compare, favorably, with good Hymns: nor is it at all likely, that there ever will be a very satisfactory Metrical Version, for the original Hebrew is too obsolete. Now, is it absolutely -necessary to piety or devotion, that Psalms in metre should be sung ?-We think not: we should think it a change very much for the better, if our ruled practice were to have two Hymns, instead of a Metrical Psalm and a Hymn. The Psalms, in Hebrew, were chanted: we use "chanting" still our prose-Psalter must be used at every service, and is as well fitted to "chanting" as that of the Jews. Why, then, should not the best of the "Selections of Psalms" be put among the Hymns, and the rest thrown away: thus leaving good room in the Book of Common Prayer to be filled with Hymns? and why should not the prose-Psalms for the Day be sung, every Sunday, or, at least, part of them? Chanting is as easily learned and as easily practised as other singing: as many people can sing in that way as in any other: chanting is as devotional and as becoming to the worship of God. We write in this way, without wishing to advance 'chanting' at the expense of singing,' which we would not give up for any 'chanting,' and without having the smallest sympathy for the despotic forcing of great changes in the usual mode of conducting Divine Service, or in the conservative customs of the people but simply with a view to speak reasonably and truly (and frankly, moreover) what we think many Clergymen, of all sorts, and many intelligent Laymen of "moderate views" in Liturgies and ceremonials, feel, as strongly as we write it. We cannot but think that the insisting upon the Metrical Selections of Psalms, beside the Psalter, and as an offset to the Hymns, is much like a superstition, and a rather stupid superstition. We come to the new book: the Committee have given to their book the title, "Hymns for Church and Home," and have set in its front a very well written Preface, which gives a hasty, yet happily-condensed history of Psalm and Hymn singing in the Church, of our American Hymn Book, and of their own labors. Their book is a small and neat one, of a moderate price. We have sedulously disclaimed knowing anything about the men of olden time, to whom we are indebted for the discovery of some of the disfiguring of many Hymns of our existing Collection: whether Clergymen or Laymen, inside or outside of the Church, we have suffered ourselves to remain profoundly ignorant, who, what, when and where they were. Having under our eyes the names of the Committee to whom we owe this last work, we cannot affect a like ignorance here. At the same time, our opinion of what they have done, is so good, that we have no fear of meeting any occasion where we shall wish for the critic's blissful ignorance, or feel that it was a folly in this point to be wise. Their title would have been simpler and more dignified, (better in short,) as it seems to us, if it had been "Hymns compiled," &c., but the title is of small account. The Index refers, not to the page, as is the clumsy fashion still followed by printers of the Prayer Book, but to the Hymn, by its number; a fashion observed in (perhaps) every Hymn Book except our own. A mere glance at their Index shows, to any intelligent eye, that they have gone to good sources, (for they have printed authors' names against most of the pieces,) and shows a promise, from the first lines, of a great many spirited and interesting Hymns; we are thankful for their printing of authors' names, which, (however it might be out of place in the Book of Common Prayer,) is eminently in place in a book of this sort. One thing we do not quite understand, in this index: that is, why Hymns from the Roman Breviary are credited to "Ancient." "Latin" would have been a more definite word, for such as came from that source. One reference (we believe only one piece is attributed to that origin) is to "Old Hymn." The precise distinction between these two authorities, we have no means of settling. Whether the last is apocryphal, as Scott's reference," Old Play,"—we are not at liberty to conjecture, because of the grave and religious character of the Committee: but we venture to suppose, that it may be a synonym for "Greek," as the other for the later classic tongue. We were not aware that that grand thing, "Lo he comes with clouds descending," was by Charles Wesley; and should be glad to know whether the reference to him is rightly made. When we observe the extraordinary number of variations and likenesses between two Hymns starting from the same first line, or perhaps from a common first verse, we cannot, of course, wonder at the different versions being ascribed to different persons. Compare, for example, "Angels! roll the rock away," (Gibbons,) and "Angel! roll the stone away," (J. Scott.) There are other cases in which, through four stanzas, each, two Hymns will run along, side by side, and will, verse for verse, bear the same thoughts, to different rhymes, and for the most part, in words different throughout. Sometimes two are singularly alike at the beginning, in some respects, and yet, in other respects, and elsewhere, throughout, are entirely unlike; as, "See the leaves around us falling, Dry and withered, to the ground," (Horne,) and, "The leaves around me falling Are preaching of decay; (Lyte.) In the reference of Hymn 112, the Committee have permitted an obvious error to pass the proof-reader; the reference ought to read "Breviary, translated by Bishop Williams," or something to that effect. The Hymn is the latter half of "Ad |