Without other metrical voice, however, the public worship of the Church remained through a century which shines with names of poetic and Christian glory. While the old Latin Hymns were sung in the communion of the Church of Rome; while those of the followers of Huss had not died away; while millions of tongues echoed and re-echoed the songs of Luther and of his successors in Germany and Sweden; the Church of England, in this resembling rather the Calvinist communions of Scotland, France, and Switzerland, held itself almost exclusively within the limit of versified portions of the sacred Scriptures. Content with the inheritance of its majestic liturgy, it loosened its hold on the sacred psalmody of the earlier Christian ages, and made no effort to enrich itself with new offerings from Spencer or Quarles, from Herbert or Donne, from Bishop Hall or Bishop King. The early Nonconformists, too, attempted no more.

At the revision of the Prayer-book in 1662, another version of the Veni Creator was added, and placed, as now, first in order. Small as was the step, it seems to have originated with a rising taste for the union of sacred words with flowing numbers in the offices of worship. The next step was the permission, in 1696, soon after the next revision or

attempt at revision, to sing the smoother Psalms of Tate and Brady; of which Bishop Compton, of London, in recommending them to his Diocese, speaks as "a work done with so much judgment and ingenuity, that he is persuaded it may take off that unhappy objection which has hitherto lain against the singing Psalms; and dispose that part of divine service to much more devotion." It would seem that with this version, or about the same time, must have come in some more pleasing paraphrases of the other versified parts of Scripture and of the Te Deum, which were appended to later editions of the Prayer-book; including our first hymn for Christmas, the first and third for Easter, the first for Whitsunday, and the first for the Holy Communion.

In the meantime the scattered effusions of Crashaw, Quarles, Herbert, Milton, Baxter, Bishop Taylor, and at length of Bishop Ken, had continued the impulse to the utterance of devotion in sacred verse, till it found, in the peculiar facility and the pious fervour of Watts, a most fitting instrument. His first book of Hymns was published in 1709, exhibiting at once a wonderful ripeness in his divine art. Within three years after, the few but exquisite Hymns of Addison appeared. Those of Doddridge

and of Charles Wesley followed in the next generȧtion; and still a generation later, those of Cowper, Newton, and Toplady.

From amongst all these a very few, and not always the same, found their way, we scarcely know how, between the covers of the Prayer-book. Such were the Hymns of Addison, the Morning and Evening Hymns of Bishop Ken, the Communion Hymn of Doddridge, and the Christmas Hymn of Wesley. They must have been already used in parish churches; and usage, not authority, gave them their place with the Psalms. Although in most churches and on most occasions no Hymn may have been sung, it became established that this part of the public services was governed, not by the rule which prescribed the liturgy, but by that which left the sermon and its appendages to the direction of the minister. Many and various, therefore, have been the collections of Hymns which have now been published for parochial use in England.

When the American Prayer-book was set forth in 1789, a selection of twenty-seven Hymns received the same authoritative sanction with the metrical version of the Psalms. It is not obvious on what grounds exactly these twenty-seven were selected. Besides five of those paraphrases, which seem to

have proceeded from Tate or Patrick, and five Hymns of uncertain origin, there were five of Addison, six of Watts, four of Doddridge, and two were ascribed to the Wesley family.

So small was this supply, and from resources so limited, that it could not suffice after any considerable impulse should have been given to the growth of our communion. It did suffice, however, for almost twenty years; and then, the General Convention of 1808, on an application from the Diocese of Maryland, determined to add the definite number of thirty more. That number was accordingly made up; ten from Watts; ten from Mrs. Steele ; three from Doddridge; two from Charles Wesley; with the strangely overlooked Morning and Evening Hymns of Bishop Ken; and with one by Beddome, and two of uncertain authorship.

The acknowledged want was hardly to be thus satisfied. These fifty-seven Hymns were not indisputably superior to all others; Logan, Cowper, Newton, Toplady, the Moravian Hymns, had been all passed by; the mass of Wesleyan sacred poetry had been scarcely consulted; the Church stood at disadvantage in comparison with the treasures which were unlocked to others; and every year, writers who shrunk not from the judgment of the severest

taste, such as Heber, Montgomery, Bowdler, and Grant, increased the neglected wealth. There was a wide-spread desire to use these treasures; and it went on and grew, till the General Convention of 1823, fifteen years after the last addition, were induced to refer the whole subject to a large Committee. That Committee made its report to the Convention of 1826; and the report embodied the existing collection of two hundred and twelve Hymns, of which only fifty-five had been in use before; two being stricken out, undoubtedly for doctrinal reasons.

Of the one hundred and fifty-seven Hymns which were thus added in 1826, sixteen were the composition of Watts; twelve of Mrs. Steele; eleven of Doddridge; eleven of Charles Wesley; ten of Logan; ten of Montgomery; nine of Newton; five of Cowper; three of Toplady; two of Pope; two of Samuel Wesley; two of Ogilvie; two of Robinson; two of Stennett; two of Beddome; two of Mrs. Barbauld; two of Bishop Heber; two of Sir Robert Grant; twenty-two of writers, each of whom contributed but one; and eleven of authors whom it is difficult to trace. Nineteen Hymns, also, were furnished by members of our own church; nine of them by Bishop Onderdonk of