| | | | Veni Creator | Spiritus in the Ordinal; and that, so far perhaps fortunately, | was the only one. Cranmer, indeed, expressed some casual hope | that men fit for the office might be induced to come forward; but | the very idea of a hymnology of the time of Henry VIII. may | make us feel thankful that the primate's wish was not carried out. | | The Church of England had, then, to wait. She had, as it has | been well said, to begin over again. There might arise saints | within herself, who, one by one, should enrich her with hymns in | her own language; there might arise poets, who should be | capable of supplying her office-books with versions of the hymns | of earlier times. In the meantime the psalms were her own; and | grievous as was the loss she had sustained, she | | might be content to suffice herself with those, and expect in | patience the rest. | | But the people, reduced in great measure to the prose of a read | service, clamoured for metrical compositions of some kind, | which would necessitate a portion of music; and Sternhold and | Hopkins arose to supply the want. With their versions, or rather | perversions, of the Psalms, of the Ten Commandments, of the | Creed, of the Te Deum , and of the other | prose hymns of the Church, she was contented for nearly a | century and a half. To Sternhold and Hopkins, however, we are | indebted for one hymn of striking pathos; that which | commences, ~~ | | The Puritans were satisfied with the use of the Psalms and some | few, but very few, compositions of their own teachers; and an | English hymn-book was unknown. | | Although between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the | Revolution several sacred lyrics of great beauty were added to | our literature by Crashaw, and Herbert, and Wither, and Henry | Vaughan, and others; and though the Countess of Pembroke, and | Crashaw, undertook, and altogether unsuccessfully, versions of | the Psalms; it would be difficult to specify more than four hymns | in any way suited to the service of the Church, which were | composed during that period. Two of them are George Herbert's, | and are therefore in every one's hands. We refer to those which | commence, ~~ | | and, ~~ | | The other two will probably be new to our readers, and we shall | quote a portion of each. | | The first is by the dramatic poet Shirley, who, whatever might | have been the excesses of his youth, died a true penitent; and it | reads to our ears very much like a penitential 'prose' from some | earlier Breviary: ~~ | | | | Undoubtedly, there is much of the old spirit here; but there is | also much of that individualizing tendency which makes modern | hymns as carefully employ, as the ancient scrupulously avoided, | the singular number. | | The other to which we alluded is the following; we will not | mention the author till the reader has concluded it: ~~ | | | | Now let us clothe these verses in an ancient dress; and when we | have made one or two slight alterations, the reader will, perhaps, | not think them altogether unworthy of earlier times: ~~ | | | | And yet the author was Richard Baxter! | | We are carried on perforce, then, from the era of Sternhold and | Hopkins to that of Tate and Brady ~~ a still lower abyss of | wretchedness. Considering what the court and age was, the Poet | Laureate of the end of the seventeenth century was hardly the | man to versify a Psalm of penitence or praise. | | About the time of the publication of the New Version, Bishop | Ken composed those hymns, two of which form the whole | recognised, though unaccredited, hymnology of the English | Church. Addison published his two versions from the Psalms; | and those three lyrics, | | and, | | which, however sweet in themselves, could never by any | possibility be suitable for the offices of the Church. Dryden | versified the Veni Creator Spiritus , and | Roscommon the Dies Irœ , the two last | lines of which he repeated with great fervour on his death-bed. | | It is surprising, at that time, how strong the objection seems to | have been against metrical compositions in public worship. | Bishop Compton, of London, mentions in his commendatory | notice of Tate and Brady, ; as an antidote to which the | warrior-prelate the New Version. To the New Version, | then, William and his court betook themselves; but the villages | of England clave to Sternhold and Hopkins; and, with Hannah | More's Squire, ~~ | | | | The objection among the Dissenters seems at that time (so | thoroughly a popular religion will change!) to have been as | strong, as we shall see presently, till Dr. Watts came out first | with his Hymns, in three books, and then with his paraphrase of | the Psalms. From his time, in or out of the English Church, a | succession of hymn-writers, such as they are, have appeared; and | it will be our duty to notice in turn Watts, the Wesleys, | Doddridge, Newton, Cowper, Toplady, Beddome, Kelly, and | Montgomery, before we turn to more modern writers, and to | more practical points. | | | Dr. Watts's Preface, which is now seldom reprinted, contains a | great portion of curious matter. The following passage is worth | quoting, as forcibly stating the very exact converse of the | Church's theory: ~~ | | | | On these principles, then, Dr. Watts set to work; and flattered | himself that he was sensibly improving the words of inspiration. | | | | And yet men like this are they who uphold the Bible, the whole | Bible, and nothing but the Bible, against all interpretations of | fallible men! At the end of his Preface we find that the then | usual practice among Dissenters was to sing six stanzas, | | and that the clerk read line by line before the congregation sang | it. This intolerable method of psalmody puts us in mind of an | occurrence which once happened to ourselves. We were, in the | days of our youth, fated to be present at a large evening | evangelical party, to which one of the stars of that time happened | to be invited. He, of course, was to expound the Scriptures, and | to offer prayer; but his ideas were not thus to be limited. Family | prayers began with a hymn; the lady of the house sat down to the | piano; the tune was played over, and the hymn commenced. The | first line was concluded, when Mr. ~~~ exclaimed, in a loud | voice, ? The obliging hostess paused; the happy | moment was seized; and to one line after another, to the horrible | disjointing of sense and music, an exposition was affixed, | through a hymn of four or five stanzas. | | But to return to Dr. Watts. On the appearance of his Hymns, | Bishop Compton addressed a complimentary letter to him, | rejoicing to be able to drop , in sympathizing with his | labours. With these we are now concerned. | | The three books comprise three hundred and sixty-five hymns. | Now, it might be well to say that we have no business to criticise, | by the laws of the Church, the compositions of those who are out | of her pale, were it not that, as matter of fact, Watts's Hymns are | deeply studied, devotionally used, and enthusiastically admired, | by many persons who profess to be Churchmen, and that many | of them are to be found in every collection of hymns in every | proprietary chapel in England. We once fell in with a church | where Watts was used, and Watts alone. It is a miserable thing | to find the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge | republishing, and so many national schools using, the same | author's 'Divine and Moral Songs.' | | We do not think, therefore, that we shall be performing an | useless task if we point out a few instances of downright heresy, | and of the most striking (though unintentional) profanity and | irreverence, which occur in these compositions. And we own | that nothing more surprises us in Dr. Johnson's writings than that | he should voluntarily have recommended the works of Watts for | insertion among the British poets. | | It is well known that throughout the writings of this voluminous | author, he completely overlooks ~~ nay, more, he absolutely | denies ~~ the part which the First Person of the ever-blessed | TRINITY bore in the work of man's redemption. Here | | again we have another melancholy example, how scripturalists | depart from Scripture; how the enemies of the traditions of the | Church make the Word of GOD of none effect by the traditions | of Calvin. Only let the mind dwell for one moment on such a | text as, ; and then compare it with such passages as the | following: ~~ | | Or the next, which, to say the least, is shocking: ~~ | | Or a hymn which thus begins: ~~ | | And this written by one who professed his belief in those words | of our LORD, ; or that declaration of S. John's, | . And the same tenour of thought runs all through Dr. | Watts's compositions. Till the sacrifice of GOD the SON, the | FATHER is all wrath, all vengeance. He threatens damnation; | He promises nothing; all the mercy is from the SON: the | 'everlasting love' of the FATHER is tacitly or absolutely denied. | | Most remarkable, too, in another point of view, is the contrast | between this 'scriptural writer' and Scripture itself. According to | him, our LORD'S death reconciled GOD to man. S. Paul teaches | us that it reconciled man to GOD: . . | | This error has never, that we know, been condemned by the | Church, simply because it never seems, in primitive or medieval | times, to have existed. The nearest approach to it is perhaps to | be found in the heresy of Soterichus Panteugenus, condemned in | the Council of Constantinople, 1156. | | On the subject of imputed righteousness Watts held, of | | course, the Lutheran idea; and sometimes brings it out in the | most offensive manner possible. | | Granting that the Lutheran heresy were the Catholic faith, could | any reverent mind for a moment endure the comparison instituted | in the last lines between the respective works of our LORD and | the HOLY GHOST? | | But on these points we need not stop to quote such passages as, | ~~ | | Again, on the Incarnation his views are lamentably defective. | That our LORD took on Himself our flesh we constantly find in | these Hymns; but there they stop: that He became man Watts | never comprehended. | | And, ~~ | | | Most remarkably are the words of Nestorius akin to the last | expression. . Yet Watts was not a Nestorian; for the | expression, 'a dying GOD,' is a favourite one of his; and in one | place he ascribes honour | | an expression which, in the mouth of S. Proclus, Nestorius | bitterly attacked. His views seem rather to have been | Apollinarian; a heresy which naturally allies itself with | Sabellianism. For, indeed, a pure Sabellian must of necessity be | a Nestorian or Apollinarian, else he runs into Patripassianism; a | heresy which, we believe, in modern times, the Swedenborgians | alone maintain. But to Sabellianism Dr. Watts undoubtedly | yielded in many of his controversial writings. Belsham, in his | Memoirs | | of Lindsey, claims Watts as an Unitarian, at least in his later | years. | | In the Hymns we are considering, we shall hardly open a page | without being shocked by some gross piece of irreverence. It is | no pleasant task to collect such; but it may be useful to show | what could be written by one whose works so many Churchmen | admire, and whose Hymns for Children the Society for | Promoting Christian Knowledge reprint. | | Under the head of, The Son of GOD | incarnate we find this shocking expression: | ~~ | | A Vision of the Lamb thus speaks: ~~ | | The Description of CHRIST | the Beloved is the title of another hymn: ~~ | | The 130th of Book I. begins, ~~ | | and the 98th of Book II. ~~ | | In another place it is said of the delights of Paradise that, ~~ | | which comparison reminds us of one in a writer who much | resembles Watts, and is almost as popular ~~ Abbot. The Young | Christian is calmly told, what we almost tremble to write, that | our LORD on the cross presented a more sublime spectacle than | Regulus in his place of torture. | | Of the Holy Eucharist we are told, in language as revolting as | profane, that ~~ | | | But enough, and too much, of this. We do not deny that Watts | has left some few ~~ some very few ~~ pieces, which, with | alterations, would grace a hymnology of the English | | Church. For example: ~~ ; ; ; | ; ; and, . Of the latter we will attempt a | version, which will show some faint resemblance, we think, to | the hymns of old time: ~~ | | | | We next come to the hymns written by Dr. Doddridge. They | were published after his death, which took place in 1750, and are | three hundred and seventy-five in number. He evidently took | Watts for his model; and while he never equalled that writer in | his few really good compositions, he never fell into his | vulgarities and profanities. He constantly avails himself of a | licence which Watts endeavoured to avoid, and protested against: | a 'common metre,' in which the first and third lines do not rhyme. | | Doddridge is the author of the two hymns which are appended to | Tate and Brady ~~ by whose permission or connivance it were | now vain to inquire ~~ , and . The last, utterly | | unworthy of the subject, is not bad, considering the time and the | man. The second verse, in particular, is remarkable: ~~ | | | | The most pleasing among Doddridge's poems is, undoubtedly, | the 'Evening Meditation,' beginning, ~~ | | but this does not profess to be a hymn. The following, which is | little known, and in which we have made one or two alterations, | strikes us as worthy of a better place: ~~ | | Again: ~~ | | | | | The hymn, 'Jerusalem, my happy home,' the author of which was | a Priest of the Scotch Church, is quite of Doddridge's school: ~~ | | | | Next we come to the hymns of the Wesleys. John Wesley | entertained sufficiently high ideas of them. , says he, | | | | | One remarkable circumstance connected with these hymns, is the | popularity they have acquired with the new sceptical school. In | our last number we quoted a passage from one of these writers, | which spoke of . One reason of this preference is, no | doubt, the intense subjectivity of these compositions; while the | darkness the struggles, the perpetual feeling after a strength and | wisdom not belonging to man, too often dissevered from any | connexion with, or acknowledgment of, the Man CHRIST | JESUS, may add to their popularity with this class. Among the | Wesleyans it is well known that the Hymn-book has almost | usurped the place of the Bible; and translations from it, in the | foreign missions, form about the first productions of the | Missionary press. | | The Hymn-book contains 560 hymns, the greater part the | composition of Charles and John Wesley; but there are also a few | from Dr. Watts, and one or two from the Olney collection. We | must do Wesley the justice of acknowledging him the introducer | of several new and very appropriate measures into English | hymnology, or, at least, the first who employed them to any | extent, and with any success. Of these, the most successful are | , and : ~~ | | But the offensive vulgarity of some of the Wesleyan anapæstic | compositions almost exceeds anything of the kind in Watts. The | very cadence of a verse like the following, borrowed as it is from | the 'Sir Trusty shall be my Adonis,' of | Rosamond , is as profane as was the Thalia of Arius: ~~ | | | | Again: ~~ | | | There is nothing, we may observe in passing, in which it is more | difficult to preserve dignity than in rhymes, recurring at | | very short intervals; nor any trial of skill from which the | hymnographers of the Church have come out with greater | success. For example; nothing can be more reverent than the | following stanzas of S. Casimir of Poland, where, actually, in the | alternate verses, half the syllables rhyme: ~~ | | | | To return to the Wesleys. It may be doubted whether any of the | original hymns included in this book could possibly, and by any | change, be included in an English hymnology. There are, it is | true, some compositions among them which show no mean skill, | ear, and taste; of these, the chief is the celebrated hymn, 'Come, | O thou traveller unknown!' in which, to use the somewhat partial | criticism of a popular hymn-writer of our own day, 'he has, with | consummate art, carried on the action of a lyrical drama.' So | again, the hymn, 'Thou GOD of glorious majesty!' composed by | Charles Wesley at the very extremity of the Land's End, is | remarkably striking, especially ~~ to anyone | acquainted with the locality ~~ the stanza ~~ | | Yet nothing, it is clear, can be farther removed from the true idea | of a Church hymn than these two compositions. If two, which | might in some small degree approximate to that model, | must be selected from the five hundred and | sixty of the Wesleyan Hymn-book, they would be, 'JESU, lover | of my soul,' and 'Happy soul, thy days are ended!' | | As to the theology of these compositions, it is what might be | expected. The mischievous Wesleyan idea of the necessity of | faith only, for the forgiveness of sins, ~~ in plain words, believe | that you are pardoned, and you are pardoned, ~ is kept, perhaps, | more in the background than one might have supposed likely; but | the other ~~ and, comparatively, innoxious ~~ dogma, of the | sinless state of perfection attainable by every Christian, is again | and again repeated. Yet, against the worst errors of Calvinism | Wesley takes an opportunity of protesting constantly, and | | occasionally alters an obnoxious verse, where he admits the hymn of | another author. For instance, in the well known Calvinian hymn, | 'JESU, Thy blood and righteousness,' we read: ~~ | | Wesley softens the last lines into ~~ | | | | It was the boast of Wesley, in the Preface from which we have | before made an extract, ~~ . Yet we will venture to | assert, that no Hymn-book, except the Moravian, contains half so | much. This alone, were there no other objections, would ruin | some of those attempts which might otherwise be passable. | | From Wesley it is natural to proceed to Whitefield. He, too, | published a Hymn-book ~~ the first which may fairly claim to be | a collection of hymns; for he drew largely on Watts, Wesley, and | other sources: and after his death, the Olney book was, in like | manner, laid under contribution. Whitefield himself had no | pretensions to be a writer of verse; and his book contains | specimens of profane vulgarity ~~ and that in a form till then | new ~~ of parody. Thus: ~~ | | is improved into ~~ | | | In this series, however, we first meet with one of the best hymns | of a certain class we possess, ~~~ 'Sweet the moments, rich in | blessing,' ~~ the author of which was a Mr. Batty; and another, | which is not without its beauty, but which is less known ~~ | | | | | At the same time with Whitefield and Wesley, flourished | Cennick, a class-leader, if we remember right, in Somersetshire, | and a man of great influence among the Methodists of the west. | He eventually became a kind of leader in a sect, virtual or | declared, among the Wesleyans; and seems to have been a low | and violent person. His hymns were published at the end of a | series of sermons. It is many years since we saw them; but we | remember that they struck us as peculiarly offensive, both as to | matter and manner. He has left one, however, which might | certainly, when purged of one or two expressions of 'assurance,' | enter into some future English hymnology. We mark them in | italics: ~~ | | | | The offensive part of the third verse might easily be altered: ~~ | | | | Next we come to the only name among English writers who | seems fitted to have added greatly to the value of our hymns, had | | he been brought up in a more perfect knowledge of the truth ~~ | we mean Toplady. 'Rock of ages, cleft for me,' is undoubtedly | the best original hymn in the English language, provided it be | taken as a penitential devotion, and not as the ordinary and | proper expression of a Christian's every-day prayers. The | thrilling solemnity of the last stanza ~~ | | is not quite unworthy to recall to the mind that wonderful | apostrophe ~~ | | And the two devotional odes, 'Deathless principle, arise!' and, | 'When languor and disease invade,' show what Toplady might | have done had he lived in better times. The concluding stanza of | the last-named composition has just the turn of a Breviary Hymn | ~~ | | | | Probably, the worst original collection of hymns ever put forth is | the Olney Book. In some of Cowper's there may be beauty: but | Newton's are the very essence of doggerel. The prosaic structure | of his verses is such that we wonder how any rhymester could | write them ~~ should be able, we mean, to make verse at all | without getting some of the trick and knack of it. For example: | | | We are very safely affirm that Newton is quite out of the | question for Church purposes; or, indeed, for any Hymn-book | whatever, and in whatever sect. | | The genius of Cowper, though it certainly never shone less than | in his hymns, raises them far above his friends'. 'There is a | fountain fill'd with blood,' might, perhaps, be admitted as a Lent | Hymn; while, 'GOD moves in a mysterious way,' and 'GOD of | my life, to Thee I call,' we might, without much hesitation, make | our own. 'Oh for a closer walk with GOD,' though | | not without its beauty, is quite out of the question for our | purpose. | | It is wonderful, indeed, how the Olney Hymn-book acquired its | popularity. The compositions of Cowper were far above the | general run of its readers. The fact is partly to be accounted for | by the immense influence which Newton possessed among his | own party, and partly perhaps by the consideration that the work | in question was the first book of original hymns published by a | Priest of the Church of England. | | We must not pass over the name of Beddome, a Baptist minister, | because his hymns, bad as they are in all other respects, possess | the rare merit of having a beginning, middle, and end. If we | might venture to take any one of his compositions, it would be | that which begins, ? But we forbear to extend our | quotations. | | At the beginning of this century, Thomas Kelly, an Irishman, | brought out a great number of original hymns, and accompanied | them with original tunes. Had he written three or four, instead of | three or four hundred, there is a warmth about him which might | have produced something not altogether contemptible. It was he | who brought that Trochaic measure into fashion, for it had been | attempted before, of which this verse may serve as a specimen: | ~~ | | | | James Montgomery added a century of hymns to the 'Christian | Psalmist;' his collection of the best compositions, in his | judgment, of this kind. Notwithstanding some very neatly | expressed gnomœ which occur in them: | e.g. ~~ | | we doubt if there be any that would suit the purposes of the | Church, with the exception perhaps of one, beginning ~~ | | | | Bishop Heber deplored deeply the miserable estate of English | hymnology, and set himself in earnest to raise it. But how? It | was but in a slight degree that he turned to the old sources of | Christian devotion; his chief conception was original | compositions. He brought an elegant mind, but little else, to the | task; and accordingly some elegant verses were the result; some | also, we are bound to add, remarkably inelegant. | | | We have now, we think, gone through all the authors of any note | in this way, for we certainly shall not notice the raving profanity | of the Countess of Huntingdon's Hymn-book, or of the Moravian | collection. One or two single hymns will be added from other | quarters: for example, that by Logan, 'O GOD of Bethel, by | Whose hand.' | | These were the resources of the English Church about thirty | years ago. By that time people seem to have been convinced that | hymns were not to be made to order; that so many yards of print | could not be manufactured at the shortest notice; that no one man | could hope to supply the acknowledged deficiency. Collections, | therefore, originally brought forward by the old evangelical | party, by Madan, Romaine, Walker of Truro, Simeon, Berridge, | Riland, Adam of Winteringham, were multiplied ten-fold. Every | one, as in the Apostles' time, had a Psalm. Preeminent among | the rest stood the 'Percy' collection, the 'Simeon' collection, the | 'Cottage Hymn-book,' and Mr. Hall's, usually called the Bishop | of London's collection, because unhappily dedicated to him: this | is one of the worst; and other collections were, generally | speaking, nothing but compilations from these. More or less of | heresy attached to all of them: happy he that, in a church where | a collection was used, got off with irreverence or nonsense. | | But the movement began in the English Church. Evangelicalism | tottered. Rushing into an opposite extreme, the leaders of the | movement eschewed the very name of a hymn. Tate and Brady, | and Sternhold and Hopkins, again came in triumphantly: our | churches were in danger once more of resounding with the ~~ | | or that complaint, savouring of such thorough knowledge of | polite society and the deep philosophy of morning calls, | | of the one; or the | | of the other. Mr. Keble was indeed to publish a new version of | Psalms; in hopelessness, on the one hand, that chanting would | ever take a firm hold of English people; and, on the other, that a | Hymnology could be formed for the use of the Church. In the | former case we believe that he will as readily and gratefully | admit his error, as at the time of publication | | he expressed doubts about the practicability of is Psalter | meeting the latter case. | | At length, men began to turn their attention to the possibility of | the English Church deriving, as her prayers, so her hymns, from | ancient stores. The principal sources from which an English | reader would derive a knowledge of the Hymns of the Latin | Church are, the translations, chiefly from the | Roman Breviary, of Mr. Copeland, Bishop Mant, J. | Williams, (an American author,) Mr. Newman, (in a privately | printed translation of part of the 'Pars Hyemalis,' of the Roman | Breviary,) and Mr. Caswall ~~ who alone has translated | all the Hymns of the Roman Breviary and | Missal; besides those which occur in Anglo-Roman Missals, and | in different collections, such as those of Mr. Palmer, of | Magdalene, and the selection for the use of Margaret-street | chapel; while of translations from the Paris | Breviary, we have Mr. Williams's, Mr. Chandler's, and the | Leeds Hymn-book: the third little more than a transcript, | however, of the second. | | All these, however, together, and much more any of them | separately, fall very short of what we want. We will point out | some of the reasons of this. | | 1. It was a very natural mistake that, after the Breviary Hymns | had experienced such long neglect, they should, on their revival, | be thought in all cases absolutely perfect. It was also natural that | at first the Paris Breviary should be preferred to the Roman. It is | more like that to which English ears had been accustomed; it is | prettier, more flowing, more classical, than even the Roman | reform; it is far more subjective; and though the amazing | strength, the awful solemnity, of the earlier hymns be gone, it | was perhaps not the less popular on that account. | Yet, if anyone | will remember that a great part of the Parisian hymns, so far as | they were original, are merely the composition, | done to order , of some very respectable | French divines and scholars of the seventeenth century, ~~ | tainted, even now, in some places with heresy, more than tainted | with it at first, ( e.g. the alteration, 'Jesu, | Redemptor plurium , for the Church's | 'Jesu, Redemptor OMNIUM,') ~~ he will perhaps be disposed to | smile at the great energy with which people went to work in | versifying the most jejune, common-place compositions of the | Gallican Church. It is noticeable, that Mr. Newman, in his | selections from the Paris Breviary, filled two hundred pages, | while in that from the Roman, York, and Salisbury, he could not | find nearly so large a number of hymns which he thought fit to | republish. | | 2. Another objection to the modern translations of the Breviary | has been the extraordinary measures in which they have | | been composed. It is the peculiar beauty, indeed, of English, as | compared with Latin, that any kind of strophe is allowable; but | then it behoves English writers to be the more careful, lest this | liberty of theirs become licence. Especially is this necessary in | translating verse, so simple, so unchanging, as are the greater | part of the hymns of the Church. But the translators have often | offended in this particular. What a monstrous stanza, for | instance, is this: ~~ | | | | Again: it may, we think, be laid down as a general rule, that in | modern languages a translation will fail in conveying a true idea | of the original unless it adopts the same species of verse. We | remember but one instance of a version in any degree successful | where this rule is neglected, and that is the 'Lusiad' of Mickle. | And we will venture to say, that, on this very account, the | translation is intolerable to anyone | at all acquainted with | Camoens. But ecclesiastical Latin is, to all intents and purposes, | a modern language. It not only employs the same measures that | we use, but its whole structure of phrase, and sequence of | thought, is the same. Then, further, it is desirable that we should | be able to employ the same ancient tune to a translation of the | same ancient hymn: how can this be, when the metre, perhaps | even the rhythm, is changed? Besides this, there seems a natural | concatenation of thought peculiarly attaching itself to certain | rhythms; and this is sadly violated by the substitution of one for | another. Take, for example, the version of the | 'Deus Tuorum militum,' as given in the 75th Number of the | 'Tracts for the Times,' by setting the original and the translation | side by side: ~~ | | | | | There is no-one , we imagine, but | must feel that the anapæstic | rhythm of the English has utterly altered the calm majestic | severity of the Iambic Latin. It is curious how, in the third verse, | it has introduced the vulgarism of , and has brought in | , which does not occur in the Latin. | | We will now take an exactly opposite instance: one, namely, | where an anapæstic rhythm becomes Iambic in the translation. It | shall be the celebrated 'Adeste fideles:' ~~ | | It will easily be seen how this hymn ~~ the wildest effusion (so | to speak) of joy which the Church has permitted herself to use ~~ | is tamed down by the matter-of-fact statements and prosaic | epithets of the translation, which also has the fault of being in a | measure represented by no known tune, whereas that of the | 'Adeste' is famous over the world. We will | now attempt a version of the same hymn, confining ourselves | literally to the same measure: ~~ | | | | We will give one more instance, and it shall be a striking one. S. | Thomas thus writes: ~~ | | The spirit of this is much lost in Mr. Williams's blank verse: ~~ | | That which is marked in italics is not in the original; while out of | the seven lines quoted from the Latin two are omitted. | | We foresee, however, two objections that will at once occur | | to the retaining the measure of the original in translations from | the Breviary. The one is, that classical measures cannot be so | rendered. We are not quite sure that they could not. Dr. Watts's | attempt at a religious Sapphic is not altogether unsuccessful. | Witness the verse ~~ | . | But the truth is, that there is hardly a hymn in classical measure | which we can look upon as absolutely necessary for our | Hymnology, except the 'Gloria, Laus, et Honor.' We will, | however, make an attempt ~~ it will be for the reader to judge of | its success; and will take the Paris hymn at Lauds for a Virgin | Martyr: ~~ | | | | Whatever may be the case with Sapphics, we have a remarkable | proof that hexameters are not altogether foreign from the | | genius of our language, as applied to religious subjects, in the | fact that the poetical parts of the Bible often throw themselves | into that form. What a noble example, for instance, is this: ~~ | | Or, again, (omitting a clause) ~~ | | Or, | | Or, | | Most remarkably in Isaiah: ~~ | | And by very slight alterations considerable passages fall into this | measure: ~~ | | Not that we have any desire to see the adoption of hexametrical | rhythm in an English hymn-book: the laws and mutual provinces | of English accent and quantity must be much better understood | than they are. | | Another objection is, that on the system of similar metres, our | usual fourteen-syllable Iambic measure, 'Common Metre,' must | not be employed in translation. But this does not seem quite to | follow. It was clearly contrary to the genius of the Latin | language, that an uneven number of Iambi should form a line. | All such attempts in modern Latin are most unsuccessful, from | the time of Sir Thomas More with his | | down to the Neo-Latin translator of Schiller ~~ | | Both of which measures are, to our ear, truly horrible. Yet again, | nether is the genius of the English language sufficiently | | suited to Long Metre with alternate rhymes; and it will generally | be found that such a verse can, with great advantage, both of | sound, sense, and flow, be cut down to a Common Metre. Tate | and Brady ~~ were they worth the improvement ~~ would be | greatly benefited by the compression: e.g. | ~~ | | | But now, as it is clearly competent to | anyone to translate an | Iambic dimeter into this alternate Long Measure, so, we argue, is | it, to turn it into Common Metre. There is no alteration of the | rhythm; none, in effect, of the cadence. Now we will take an | example: ~~ the Long Metre translation is from one of the | established versions; the other, an attempt of our own. | | | | We have now touched on some of the causes why translations | from the Breviary have generally been unsuccessful. But the | chief remains: the great carelessness, haste, and slovenliness | with which they have been written. This remark applies to every | translator, except to Mr. Wackerbarth. Mr. Caswall, too, is less | obnoxious to it than the rest. | | That which should now be done ~~ on competent authority ~~ | seems clear. Let all the versions from the Breviary be collected: | let some scholar, possessed of a good ear, and well read in our | poets, select the best parts of each, ~~ and, where they all fail, | endeavour to supply the deficiency with something of his own. | Let him be content with thirty or forty good translations; and let | him spare no pains in rendering them the model versions: to | these let the twelve or fifteen best English hymns we at present | possess be added; ~~ with such corrections as the Faith may | require, or taste suggest. Then let the book be submitted to the | correction of such members of the English Church as have a right | to be consulted; and let then a second editor decide between their | corrections, and the original of the first compiler. The forty | hymns we so obtain might perhaps be sufficient till some future | convocation shall authoritatively decide the great question of | Hymnology. | | As an example of what we have been saying, we will take four | versions of the celebrated Pange lingua . | The first is Mr. Wackerbarth's; the second, Mr. Williams's; the | third, the improvement of it in the Leicester Collection; the | fourth, that given in Dr. Pusey's Translation of the Paradisus | Animæ. To enable the English reader to judge of the respective | merits of the translations, as to closeness, we subjoin a literal | version: ~~ | | | | | | | | Now, of these versions, it is very clear that Mr. Wackerbarth's is | by far the best, but yet by no means perfect. is an | unjustifiable interpolation for the sake of a rhyme. We are not | called to contemplate our LORD'S Passion, | | but His gift of Himself to us as our food. The last five lines of | the first stanza are nearly perfect, as a translation; in the second, | the term descended , for | born , is most awkward; and the rendering | the intacta Virgine, clearly meant only | by S. Thomas to express the maiden purity of the Mother of | GOD, by an expression which hints at the Immaculate | Conception, is hardly a fair licence. Neither is the well | given by . In the third stanza the close contexture of the | original is fully kept up, with the one exception of the word | fratribus . The beauty of the idea, that it was | to His brethren that our Lord gave Himself, is quite lost. The | fourth stanza is not so successful. (made) . | The repetition of the terms is quite lost by the substitution of | incarnate , for made flesh | , and bidding , for | word ; and the phrase | blood-shedding , for blood , is | extremely awkward. The Leicester book is better; but, by giving | 'GOD the Word,' for Verbum Caro , | misses one of the points. Dr. Pusey's seems the best, though the | Bread of nature , instead of | very Bread , is not so well; but the two | antitheses are perfectly kept up. In the fifth stanza, S. Thomas's | idea, that faith is the supplement, or rather complement, of sense, | is quite lost by Mr. Wackerbarth, and by all the translators. The | doxology gives a very awkward rhyme in the second line; and | the similar commencement of that and the fourth, should have | been avoided. | | Mr. Caswall's translation of the above Hymn we have not given; | and that for the reason that, by dropping the double rhymes, he | has put himself out of the pale of comparison with the other | translators. He had a very much easier task; but, notwithstanding | this, and his having borrowed some lines from Dr. Pusey's | translation, we doubt whether his version is so good as Mr. | Wackerbarth's. This indeed is the great fault of his work, ~~ the | difficulty he seems to have experienced in finding rhymes, and | their consequent paucity and poverty; e.g. | | | | We will, however, to do Mr. Caswall justice, give in this place | one beautiful hymn, beautifully translated. It is S. Francis | Xavier's . | | | | | Mr. Caswall's unwillingness to take the trouble of rhyming is still | more strongly shown in his translation of the prose, | Victimœ Paschali . We will first give his | blank-verse version, and then an attempt of our own in rhyme. | | | | | The only general attempt to provide a hymn-book for the English | Church appeared in 1847, under the title which stands | seventeenth at the head of his article. We noticed it at the time, | and pronounced it to be ~~ what emphatically it is ~~ an utter | failure. It contains 236 hymns, evidently raked together with the | utmost speed, and reminding one of the Wise Man's declaration | ~~ . Perhaps of the local collections, that marked No. | 18 in our list is the best. This contains a hundred hymns ~~ | about twice as many as it ought to embrace: ~~ but there are | none very bad, though we miss several of the best. | | One difficulty still remains to be disposed of. How far is the | Church justified in selecting for her Hymnology the | compositions of those who were never within her fold? some of | whom, moreover, were tainted with the most gross and glaring | heresy. | | To us, we confess, the question seems perfectly easy. In the | same way as the Church has dared to inherit the earth physically, | and intellectually, and æsthetically, so she may vindicate to | herself its moral possession. It would be as reasonable to say | that she should not avail herself of the treasures of Pagans, ~~ | that she should not render subservient to her own purpose the art | or the discoveries of Greece or Rome, ~~ that she should not | have stamped the Aristotelian philosophy with her own approval, | and made it that of the schoolmen; as that she may not lay hands, | whenever and wherever they may occur, on the writings of those | that acknowledge her not, adopting them either wholly, or | moulding them to her own creeds. A precisely similar case | occurs in the fact that a part of the authentic version of the | Scriptures, as employed by the Eastern Church, is, actually, | | the work of a heretic. If it be urged that this appropriation can | only be made by a Synodal Act of a provincial Church, so far we | agree: but the Hymnology, the composition of which we are | contemplating, can only be viewed in the light of a tentative | work, and subject, of course, to the final approval or rejection of | her supreme authority. All we urge is, that the hymns of | Dissenters will be accepted or rejected by Convocation on their | own merit or demerit, and not on the bare simple ground that | their authors did not hold the Catholic faith. | | And we cannot help expressing our thankfulness that our Church | has hitherto been kept from committing herself, as her American | daughter has done, to a hastily compiled and trashy hymn-book. | A judgment of extreme charity only can hinder us from branding | some of the compositions of the latter as undoubtedly heretical. | | We now, finally, have to speak of a class of hymns which | completely belongs to modern times: we mean those for | children. Till the late movement there were but two original | works of this kind which attained any celebrity: ~~ Dr. Watts's | Divine and Moral Songs, and Jane Taylor's Nursery Rhymes. | Now, with the views that Dissenters take of hymns ~~ as | compositions designed to teach some religious truth in verse, ~~ | we neither are surprised, nor at all disposed to blame them, if | they have hit on this method of inculcating their own tenets, on | their, and other people's children. Could they have done it more | successfully? Has any one composition had more influence in | forming the minds of English children ~~ we do not for a | moment except the Catechism, ~~ than Watts's Divine and Moral | Songs? Is it not a fact, that where the parish priest himself has | preached the doctrine of the Church, he has allowed the children | committed to his charge to suck in the poison of this book, ~~ to | believe themselves reprobates from the cradle: he has forced | them to say ~~ | | | | Instead of being taught that the work of salvation is already | accomplished for them, and that all their part is to 'continue in | the same unto their life's end,' they are called upon to begin it | themselves, ~~ they are furiously threatened if they delay this | beginning. | | How it is to be begun, is plentifully repeated: ~~ | | | And again ~~ | | | To teach children this is 'grieving the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD,' | Whose influences are so strong within them, by telling them that | they are absolutely given up and sold under sin; ~~ it is teaching | them to trust in themselves for their salvation, and to despise the | gift of God; ~~ it is throwing away that one precious opportunity | which can never be resorted; ~~ it is raising a vantage ground for | all future assaults of their great enemy; ~~ it is discouraging all | future resistance to temptation; for why should he be resisted | who is already in possession? And so the child argues, ~~ I am | bad now, and I may as well be bad a little longer. | | We cannot resist uttering one word of warning, in respect to this | very book, to those who call themselves the Evangelical party. | Does it not show that there must be something totally and | fundamentally wrong in their system, when in a work that to so | great a degree forms the mind of their children, there is but one | reference ~~ and that of the most casual kind ~~ to the Third | Person of the ever-blessed Trinity? In the hymns on the Bible, | and on the Sunday, where we should have thought that the writer | could hardly fail of referring in the one case to the inspiration, in | the other to the descent, of the Holy Ghost, there is not the | slightest allusion to either. This ought to startle those who are in | this error. One warning they have already had, of a similar kind, | ~~ the avidity with which they dispersed, (recommended in a | preface written by one of their leaders,) a work composed by an | Arian, ~~ his Arian creed developed most strongly in the book | itself, though not then acknowledged by public report as now. | | So much for Watts's Hymns: ~~ Jane Taylor's come less under | our notice. If they were never possessed of so much influence, | they are at all events less dangerous, and far less offensive. A | few lines in that on Eternity are so excessively striking in | themselves, and so admirably adapted to the capacities of those | for whom they are written, that we will quote them here: ~~ | | | | | However, on the revival, the question immediately opened itself, | ~~ What is to be done with respect to hymns for children? | | Of modern hymn-books written to this end, we have placed four | at the head of our article. The Child's | Christian Year is good, both in style and thought, though | perhaps too much in advance of the intellect of a common child. | | The second is Mr. Williams's 'Hymns on the Church Catechism:' | of which the following Hymn may stand as a specimen; the most | beautiful, which is the last, is too long to quote: ~~ | | | | The third are the Three Series of Hymns for Children, in | accordance with the Catechism, by Mr. J. M. Neale. Their | recommendation is, that they teach no false doctrine, and that | they are written in easy measures; their great fault, that many of | them are intolerably prosaic. We will give one as a specimen: | ~~ | | | | | | These hymns are principally designed for National Schools: | those we are about to notice, on the contrary, are better adapted | for those of the upper classes. And we must confess that it is | deep matter of thankfulness, after having found children | threatened by 'dwelling with devils,' 'in darkness, fire, and | chains,' and 'young sinners being sent alive to hell,' and having | their portion 'in the lake that burns with brimstone and with fire,' | ~~ and being brought to consider themselves, 'by nature and by | practice too, a wretched slave to sin,' to have the following hymn | proposed for their daily use. It is like coming into an atmosphere | of health, light, and freedom, from a dark and pestilential prison: | ~~ | | | | | So again, instead of hearing that children who laugh or play in | church are struck dead, and tormented by fiends, and turn all | God's love into fury, we are taught ~~ | | | | One more contrast, and we have done. Hear Dr. Watts's warning | : ~~ | | Having forthwith, after his custom, consigned these wicked | children to perdition, Watts proceeds with a sort of savage | exultation ~~ | | We will add Mr. Williams's hymn on the same subject: ~~ | | | | | We must now conclude these remarks. We make no apology for | their length, because we feel that the importance of the subject | cannot easily be overrated. If Sir Philip Sydney said truly, | ~~ so with at least equal truth it might be said, 'Give me the | selection of a Church Hymns, and I care not who makes, ~~ or | rather, in the present instance, who has made, ~~ its Articles.' | No doubt the Puritan depression of the Church of England in the | first thirty years of the present century was, in great measure, | brought to pass by the heresy of its hymns; may we not, under | GOD, expect the happiest results from Catholic teaching in her | future Hymnology? And does it not depend on all and each of | us, by the hymns we now employ in our churches, or sanction in | our schools, what the future Hymnology of the English Church | shall be? | | Since the above article was written, we have perused the | 'Evangelical Melodies,' which many of our readers will have seen | quoted in a late article of the Quarterly Review. GOD forbid that | we should endeavour to raise a laugh at such a book. We have | not so learnt the Apostle's words: . Yet we shall | certainly make some quotations from the book, that our readers | may judge for themselves what that religion was, which, twenty | years ago, so nearly engulfed the Church of England. | | First, the writer shall tell his design: ~~ | | | | | Next, he shall speak of his capabilities: ~~ | | And a good many more lately: ~~ | | Now for examples: ~~ | | Again: ~~ | | Once more: ~~ | | | | The writer ~~ a merchant ~~ thus addresses his partner: ~~ | | | The following, we suppose, must be intended for the 'Miss | Matilda or Miss Caroline' to produce when Sir C. E. Smith 'drops | in.' | | | | This complaint of too great bitterness comes rather strangely in a | book which speaks of . | | And again: ~~ | | | | Here is another specimen: ~~ | | And here is the commendation of the 'good City Mission:' ~~ | | | | | | We must conclude. Our author seems to have had some idea of | leaving the English Church, as being now somewhat in the | condition that she occupied ~~ | | | | But he fortunately remembered that ~~ | | | | And so there we will leave him, with one quotation more: ~~ | |