into anatomical detail, expressions derived from the physical structure of the human frame.

A careful examination of the books of Mr. Palgrave and Lord Selborne, however, brings to light other reasons for the vast superiority of the lyrical over the hymnal collection, amongst which these may be mentioned. (1) Both by nature and training Mr. Palgrave was fitted for the work of editing a collection of lyrics, but as much cannot be said of Lord Selborne, whilst it may even be affirmed that his legal training rather unfitted him for editing such a work as "The Book of Praise." And so it has come to pass that whilst Mr. Palgrave recognised the real lyric note wherever he heard it, Lord Selborne, hearing did not hear, so that some of the finest sacred lyrics of earlier days are sought for in vain in his pages. The reader cannot find there such noble examples of poetic hymnody as Herrick's lovely litany, "In the dark and cloudy day," or John Mason's "Thou wast, O God, and Thou wast blest," Sir Thomas Browne's "The night is come, like to the day;" Madame Guion's nobly mystical hymn, known to English-speaking folk through Cowper's translation, “O Thou by long experience tried;" John Milton's version of the 84th Psalm, "How lovely are Thy dwellings, Lord," and many others belonging to earlier days, which might be named; whilst, if we come to our own time, some of the greatest names are conspicuous by their absence. It seems scarcely possible, but it is true, nevertheless, that not a single hymn by Father Faber (in some senses, the finest hymnist of the century), Adelaide Ann Procter, Thomas Hornblower Gill, George Rawson, and many others, can be found in a book which professes to

represent "the best English hymn-writers." If my memory serves me aright, I have seen somewhere a remark of Lord Selborne's that Mr. Dix's hymn, "As with gladness men of old," shows that the power of hymnwriting has not departed. Departed! Who but a lawyer, held in the iron chain of precedent, would ever think of the power of hymn-writing as likely to depart? Rather has it in the present century flourished in a way to which no previous one can lay claim. Dean Stanley seems to have felt this, since, in the article from which I have already quoted, speaking of the uniform pedestrian style which is unfortunately familiar to English Churchmen in the vast mass of the verses contained in "Hymns Ancient and Modern," says: "It is the English poet of the nineteenth century, not the Latin hymnodists of the fourteenth or fifteenth that have furnished whatever there is of poetical in the collection." It is very greatly to be regretted that a recent editor should have put in a plea for the retention of such inferior hymns, supporting it, as he does, by a reference to the popularity of national ballads.* No illustration could have been more unfortunate, since the ballads that still hold their ground are full of lyric fire-a quality in which the hymns of inferior writers are singularly deficient. It is the absence of such lyric fire from a multitude of hymns still printed which prevents their being sung, and only renders them an incumbrance to the hymnals in which they are retained, hindering them from being valued as a hymnal should be. This is one of the lessons that the Church at large sorely needs to lay to heart. Up to the present time she has

*Dr. Allon in the preface to the " Congregational Psalmist

Hymnal."

given, or rather hymn-book editors have forced upon her hymns of the past which once had a place because none better were obtainable, hymns which satisfied the cruder taste of those less cultured days, but which are no longer acceptable to intelligent worshippers. In the Episcopal church this remark applies to the hymns of early and mediæval times, of which but a very small number deserve, on their merits, to be retained, and in the Nonconformist churches to the great mass of the hymns by Watts and Wesley, both of whom wrote far too much for it to be possible that all should be of a high quality. Watts wrote between five and six hundred hymns, whilst C. Wesley wrote as many thousands. All Nonconformist hymnals with anything like official sanction have too large an infusion of hymns from these and similar Sources. The Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-Book" is chiefly from the pen of the Wesleys-the hymns of other writers are only supplemental thereto. The "Congregational Hymn Book," consisting of 1,000 hymns, contains 393 by Dr. Watts. The "Baptist Hymnal," containing 920, has 59 of Watts's; whilst the recently-issued and unofficial hymnal edited by Dr. Allon has 65, a fourteenth of the whole. The result is that the remark of the Oxford professor with regard to "The Book of Praise" applies to the great majority of hymnals. The insertion of a large number of mediocre and even inferior hymns on the ground that they were written by authors whose compositions, on account of the paucity of good hymnists, were once highly valued, gives a tone of dulness and insipidity to the collections in which they form so large a part. It renders them like a wilderness in

which the oases are few and far apart. And one result is that to most persons of cultivated taste, they seldom, if ever, become, as they should, manuals of devotion for private and family use. In this respect the great majority of hymnal editors have not kept pace either with the tastes or the wishes of the people for whom they cater. This is capable of proof from the actual usage of the Church. The hymns actually used in the Established Church are chiefly the more poetic of the older times and those by recent or still living writers; whilst in churches of the Baptist and Independent order, hymns by Watts and those of his school are rapidly passing out of use, only the finest retaining their hold on the affections of the worshippers. It would seem, therefore, that the day of rhymed prose of which Dr. Watts's hymns, save in some twenty-five or thirty examples, consists, is over, and that the church in both its Episcopal and Nonconformist branches is longing to be free from all but the noblest hymns, whether ancient or medieval, or those of Watts and his followers. Indeed, the reason that once existed for the former bondage no longer holds. Our forefathers in the Established Church were obliged to be content with Sternhold and Hopkins, or Tate and Brady, because no sweeter singers were available. Our forefathers in Independency were content with Watts because he held the field, with scarcely a competitor. But this is no longer the case. The hymnists whose works are now available are legion. The forthcoming "Dictionary of Hymnology," to be published by Mr. Murray, under the editorship of the Rev. John Julian, will include accounts of no less than 3,000 hymn-writers and 30,000 hymns, so that

there is an almost boundless treasury on which the church may draw for her worship-song. And this will render it possible for the church to have hymnals of which it may be said that in them "there is almost nothing that is bad." There is, indeed, no reason why collections for the purpose of worship as good as the "Golden Treasury of Lyrics," by Mr. Palgrave, is for reading, should not be at the command of our churches. By means of such they might be lifted to a nobler and more spiritual worship, which would ere long produce corresponding results both in heart and life.

James Montgomery, in the preface to his "Christian Psalmist," published in 1825, says, "Hymns, looking at the multitude and mass of them, appear to have been written by all kinds of persons except poets." This remark to a certain extent still holds good, but in a less degree than when he penned it. It may still be said that in hymnody the poets of the first order are conspicuous by their absence; but poets, who, if they do not stand in the first rank, are yet really poets, are more and more conspicuous by their presence. Some little very real poetry may be found among the older treasures of hymnody, though such poetic hymns were not incorporated with the earlier hymnals. I refer to hymns by Herrick, Francis Quarles, Sir Thomas Browne, George Herbert, and others; but in recent years there may be numbered among the hymnists of our own country, such poets as William Cowper, Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Henry Francis Lyte, Frederick William Faber, John Keble, John Henry Newman, Francis Turner Palgrave, Walter Chalmers Smith, and others; whilst if we pass across the sea to our kinsmen in the New World, scarcely a poet can be