a conscientious dissenter, is so entirely catholic in his hymns, that it cannot be discovered from any of these, (so far as we recollect,) that he belonged to any particular sect; hence, happily for his fame, or rather, it ought to be said, happily for the Church of Christ, portions of his psalms and hymns have been adopted in most places of worship where congregational singing prevails. Every Sabbath, in every region of the earth where his native tongue is spoken, thousands and tens of thousands of voices are sending the sacrifices of prayer and praise to God, in the strains which he prepared for them a century ago; yea, every day, "he being dead yet speaketh," by the lips of posterity, in these sacred lays, some of which may not cease to be sung by the ransomed on their journey to Zion, so long as the language of Britain endures—a language now spreading through all lands whither commerce, civilization, or the Gospel, are carried by merchants, colonists, and missionaries. It might be expected, however, that, in the first models of a new species of poetry, there would be many flaws and imperfections, which later practitioners would discern and avoid. Such, indeed, are too abundant in Dr Watts's Psalms and Hymns; and the worst of all is, that his authority stands so high with many of his imitators, that, while his faults and defects are most faithfully adopted, his merits are unapproachable by them. The faults are principally prosaic phraseology, rhymes worse than none, and none where good ones are absolutely wanted to raise the verse upon its feet, and make it go, according to the saying, "on all-fours ;" though, to do the Doctor justice, the metre is generally free and natural, when his lines want every other qualification of poetry. Under this charge, much allowance must be made for the author, on recollection that these blemishes were far less offensive when he flourished, than they are in the present more fastidious age, which requires exacter versification, with pure, perfect rhymes; not to gratify a craving ear with an idle jingle,-for bad rhymes are much more obtrusive than good ones,-but to form a running harmony through the verse, which is felt without being remarked, and yet so essential to the music of the whole, that the occasional flatness or absence of one is instantly recognised, and produces a sense of wrong; though, while the rhymes are true to their tone and their place, the frequent recurrence of them is no more noticed than the perpetual repetition of particles in every sentence that can be constructed; yet any omission or superfluity of these is immediately perceived and resented by correct taste. It is a great temptation to the indolence of hymn-writers, that the quartain measures have been so often used by Dr Watts, without rhyme in the first and third lines. He himself confessed that this was a defect; and, though some of the most beautiful hymns are upon this model, if the thing itself be not a fault, it is the cause of half` the faults that may be found in inferior compositions, -negligence, feebleness, and prosing.-In the following miscellany are given many of Dr Watts's best performances, exemplifying that versatility of talent which could accommodate itself to every change of subject, style, and character, within his boundless range of sacred enterprise. Next to Dr Watts as a hymn-writer, undoubtedly stands the Rev. Charles Wesley. He was probably the author of a greater number of compositions of this kind, with less variety of matter or manner, than any other man of genius that can be named. Excepting his "Short Hymns on Passages of Scripture," which of course make the whole tour of Bible literature, and are of very unequal merit,— Christian experience, from the deeps of affliction, through all the gradations of doubt, fear, desire, faith, hope, expectation, to the transports of perfect love, in the very beams of the beatific vision,-Christian experience furnishes him with everlasting and inexhaustible themes; and it must be confessed, that he has celebrated them with an affluence of diction, and a splendour of colouring, rarely surpassed. At the same time, he has invested them with a power of truth, and endeared them both to the imagination and the affections, with a pathos which makes feeling conviction, and leaves the understanding little to do but to acquiesce in the decisions of the heart. As the Poet of Methodism, he has sung the doctrines of the Gospel, as they are expounded among that people, dwelling especially on the personal appropriation of the words of eternal life to the sinner, or the saint, as the test of his actual state before God, and admitting nothing less than the full assurance of faith as the privilege of believers :— "Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, Laughs at impossibilities, And says It shall be done.' "Faith lends her realizing light, The clouds disperse, the shadows fly, The Invisible appears in sight, And God is seen by mortal eye." These are glimpses of our author's manner,-broad indeed, and awful, but signally illustrative, like lightning out of darkness, revealing for a moment the whole hemisphere. Among C. Wesley's highest achievements may be recorded, "Come, O Thou traveller unknown," &c. page 55, in which, with consummate art, he has carried on the action of a lyrical drama; every turn in the conflict with the mysterious Being against whom he wrestles all night, being marked with precision by the varying language of the speaker, accompanied by intense, increasing interest, till the rapturous moment of discovery, when he prevails, and exclaims, "I know Thee, Saviour, who Thou art,” &c. The hymn, page 375," Come on, my partners in distress," &c. anticipates the strains, and is written almost in the spirit, of the Church triumphant.— "Thou wretched man of sorrow," &c. and its companion-piece, "Great Author of my being," &c. page 289-90, are composed with equal strength and fervency of feeling,-feeling, congenial yet perfectly contrasted with that in the former instance; for here, instead of the society of saints and angels, he indulges lonely silent anguish, desiring " to live and die alone" with God, as if creature-communion had ceased with him for ever." Thou God of glorious majesty!" &c. page 169, is a sublime contemplation in another vein ;-solemn, collected, unimpassioned thought, but thought occupied with that which is of everlasting import to a dying man, standing on the lapse of a moment between "two eternities."-The hymn on the Day of Judgment, "Stand the omnipotent decree," begins with a note, abrupt and awakening like the sound of the last trumpet. This is alto gether one of the most daring and victorious flights of our author. Such pieces prove, that if Charles Wesley's hymns are less varied than might have been desired for general purposes, it was from choice, and predilection for certain views of the Gospel in its effects upon human minds, and not from want of diversity of gifts. It is probable that the severer taste of his brother, the Rev. John Wesley, greatly tempered the extravagance of Charles, pruned his luxuriances, and restrained his impetuosity, in those hymns of his, which form a large proportion of the Methodist collection; the few which are understood to be John's in that book, being of a more intellectual character than what are known to be Charles's, while the latter are wonderfully improved by abridgment and compression, in comparison with the originals, as they were first given to the public. The four hymns Our further notices must be brief. attributed to Addison are very pleasing. It is only to be regretted that they are not more in number, and that the God of Grace, as well as the God of Providence, is not more distinctly recognised in them. All that can be imagined deficient in Addison's hymns, will be found to constitute the glory of Doddridge's. They shine in the beauty of holiness; these offsprings of his mind are arrayed in "the fine linen, pure and white, which is the righteousness of saints ;" and, like the saints, they are lovely and acceptable, not for their human merit, (for in poetry and eloquence they are frequently deficient,) but for that fervent unaffected love to God, his service, and his people, which distinguishes them. Blessed is the man |