I.—Sixteenth Century
Before the Reformation England was rich in ballads, but had practically no hymns. Yet there are in that earlier period a few great names—Cædmon, Aldhelm, Bede, Alfred—which are beginning to appear in some modern hymnals.[56]
It is usual to date English hymnody from the days of Dr. Watts. Before his time, however, a considerable number of hymns had been written in English, a fair proportion of which were of high poetic character, and not unsuitable for public worship. But the idea of a hymn-book had hardly entered the mind of the Church. Many longed for ‘godly ballads’ to supplant the vain songs of the Court, the camp, and the street, but for the most part they longed in vain. We must not, however, overlook the preparation made during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The English Reformation had no poet, no one who could give the common people songs such as Luther had provided for the Germans. Myles Coverdale (1487-1569), Bishop of Exeter, saw how great the need was; but he could not supply it, though he did his best. His ‘Ghostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs, drawn out of the Holy Scripture for the comfort and consolation of such as love to rejoice in God and His Word,’ is an unsuccessful attempt to render into English some of the German hymns. He confesses that the verses are ‘rude in song and rhyme.’ Yet there is not wanting that yearning after God, that quiet trust in Christ, that turning to Him with hope and penitence and love which is the note of all Christian psalmody. I quote a few verses—modernizing the spelling—from what is, I think, his best effort.
I call on Thee, Lord Jesu Christ,
I have none other help but Thee:
My heart is never set at rest,
Till Thy sweet word have comforted me.
And steadfast faith grant me therefore,
To hold by Thy word evermore.
Above all thing
Never resisting
But to increase in faith more and more.
Lord, print into my heart and mind
Thy Holy Spirit with ferventness;
That I to Thee be not unkind,
But love Thee without feignedness.
Let nothing draw my mind from Thee,
But ever to love Thee earnestly:
Let not my heart
Unthankfully depart
From the right love of Thy mercy.
Give me Thy grace, Lord, I Thee pray,
To love mine enemies heartily:
Howbeit they trouble me alway,
And for Thy cause do slander me,
Yet, Jesu Christ, for Thy goodness,
Fill my heart with forgiveness,
That while I live
I may them forgive
That do offend me more or less.[57]
Coverdale’s hymns prepared the way for more successful efforts in the same direction. And it is pleasant to remember that the brave old reformer, who stood by his friend and tutor, Robert Barnes, the martyr, when he was summoned to appear before Wolsey as a heretic, and who devoted so many years to the translation of the Holy Scriptures, was one of the first who desired to make the English folk love godly hymns.
It is an ancient fashion to disparage Sternhold and Hopkins’s version of the Psalms, but it was a great advance upon Coverdale, and ‘marks an era in the history of sacred song.’[58] Sternhold died in 1549, and Coverdale survived him for twenty years. He was Groom of the Robes to both Henry VIII and Edward VI. Probably the popularity of Clement Marot’s[59] French version may have suggested to Sternhold the attempt to provide the English Court with similar sacred songs instead of the profane ballads which pleased both French and English courtiers. Henry had a sincere regard for him, and remembered him in his will. Edward loved to hear these metrical psalms sung by their author, and caused them to be ‘sung openly,’ so that others might learn to love them as he did. Sternhold was a modest man, and did not claim any great merit for his songs.
‘Albeit,’ he says, in his dedication to Edward VI, ‘I cannot give to your Majesty great loaves, or bring into the Lord’s barn full handfuls ... I am bold to present unto your Majesty a few crumbs which I have picked up from under the Lord’s board.’
Part of his version of Ps. xviii. is usually given as the best example of his work.
O God, my strength and fortitude,
Of force I must love Thee.
There are some good verses in Ps. ix., which are of the same type.
O Lord, with all my heart and mind
I will give thanks to Thee;
And speak of all Thy wondrous works
Unsearchable of me.
I will be glad and much rejoice
In Thee, O God, most high;
And make my songs extol Thy name
Above the starry sky.
For evermore in dignity
The Lord doth rule and reign;
And in the seat of equity
True judgement doth maintain.
With justice He doth keep and guide
The world and every wight,
With conscience and with equity
He yieldeth folk their right.
He is Protector of the poor,
What time they be opprest;
He is in all adversity
Their refuge and their rest.
All they that know Thy holy name,
Therefore do trust in Thee;
For Thou forsakest not their suit,
In their necessity.
But sure the Lord will not forget
The poor man’s grief and pain;
The patient people never look
For help of God in vain.
The Old Version, which bears the name of Sternhold and Hopkins, was the work of several hands. John Hopkins was the largest contributor. Of his life little is known. Warton called him not the least of the British poets of his day, and his versions are generally considered superior to Sternhold’s. They are no doubt smoother, but I cannot see that they have more poetry in them. Sometimes his lines are ridiculously divided, and it is difficult to imagine that at any period they could have been regarded as tolerable.
It was, however, a psalm of Hopkins’s which comforted John Wesley after hearing a sermon, of which he disapproved, at Bow, in 1738. ‘God answered the thoughts of my heart, and took away my fear, in a manner I did not expect, even by the words of Thomas Sternhold. They were these (sung immediately after the sermon)’—
Thy mercy is above all things,
O God; it doth excel;
In trust whereof, as in Thy wings,
The sons of men shall dwell.
Within Thy house they shall be fed
With plenty at their will;
Of all delights they shall be sped,
And take thereof their fill.
Because the well of life most pure,
Doth ever flow from Thee;
And in Thy light we are most sure,
Eternal light to see.
From such as Thee desire to know,
Let not Thy grace depart;
Thy righteousness declare and show
To men of upright heart.
William Whittingham, Calvin’s brother-in-law, and Knox’s successor as pastor of the English congregation at Geneva, contributed about twelve psalms, including the cxix., which runs to over 700 lines. In 1563 he became Dean of Durham, and was excommunicated by the Archbishop of York (father of George Sandys). He died in 1579, and was buried in the cathedral in which he is said to have destroyed the image of St. Cuthbert and other ancient monuments which were obnoxious to his Puritan taste. Other writers were John Pullain, another Genevan exile; Robert Wisdome, who was frightened into a recantation of his ‘errors’ by Bishop Bonner, but shortly after recanted again; Thomas Norton, who wrote the version of Ps. cxlvii., beginning—
Praise ye the Lord, for it is good
Unto our God to sing;
For it is pleasant, and to praise
It is a comely thing.
William Kethe, author of ‘All people that on earth do dwell;’ John Marckant, and John Craig.[60] John Marckant, vicar in 1559 of Great Clacton, and of Shopland 1563-8, was the author of four psalms in the Old Version. But he is remembered by ‘The Lamentation of a Sinner,’ which is one of the redeeming features of the book. It is known in modern times almost exclusively in Heber’s revision. The original is admirable in its pathos and simplicity.
THE LAMENTATION OF A SINNER
O Lord, turn not Thy face away
From him that lies prostrate,
Lamenting sore his sinful life,
Before Thy mercy-gate.
Which gate Thou openest wide to those
That do lament their sin,
Shut not that gate against me, Lord,
But let me enter in.
And call me not to mine account,
How I have livèd here;
For then I know right well, O Lord,
How vile I shall appear.
I need not to confess my life,
I am sure Thou canst tell,
What I have been, and what I am,
I know Thou knowest it well.
O Lord, Thou knowest what things be past,
And eke the things that be;
Thou knowest also what is to come,
Nothing is hid from Thee.
Before the heavens and earth were made,
Thou knowest what things were then,
As all things else that have been since
Among the sons of men.
And can the things that I have done,
Be hidden from Thee then?
Nay, nay, Thou knowest them all, O Lord,
Where they were done and when.
Wherefore with tears I come to Thee,
To beg and to entreat,
Even as the child that hath done ill,
And feareth to be beat.
So come I to Thy mercy-gate,
Where mercy doth abound,
Requiring mercy for my sin,
To heal my deadly wound.
O Lord, I need not to repeat,
What I do beg or crave:
Thou knowest, O Lord, before I ask,
The thing that I would have.
Mercy, good Lord, mercy I ask,
This is the total sum,
For mercy, Lord, is all my suit,
Lord, let Thy mercy come.
With Sternhold and Hopkins began the reign of the metrical Psalter. The attempt to turn the whole book of Psalms into verse for congregational use has had a curious fascination. No one has attained more than very partial success, not even Watts or Keble. In Julian’s long list of those who have essayed to render the Psalms into English verse, are many names upon which one lingers with interest. Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Archbishop Parker, Sir Philip Sidney and his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, Bishop Hall, George Wither, George Herbert, George Sandys, John Milton, General Fairfax, Richard Baxter, Joseph Addison, Cotton Mather, Christopher Smart, and great numbers in more recent times.
Of the multitude of these forgotten psalms the majority, even of the best, are but literary curiosities, myriads are not even curious, they are simply dull. A few little-known psalms of these early days I quote either for their own or their authors’ sake. The following by Queen Elizabeth is characteristically vigorous in expression. I have modernized the spelling—
PSALM XIV
Fools, that true faith yet never had,
Say in their hearts there is no God!
Filthy they are in their practice,
Of them not one is godly wise.
From heaven the Lord on man did look
To know what ways he undertook;
All they were vague and went astray,
Not one He found in the right way.
In heart and tongue have they deceit,
Their lips throw forth a poisoned bait;
Their minds are mad, their mouths are wode,[61]
And swift they be in shedding blood.
So blind they are no truth they know,
No fear of God in them will grow.
How can that cruel sort be good
Of God’s dear folk which suck the blood?
On Him rightly shall they not call,
Despair will so their hearts appall.
At all times God is with the just,
Because they put in Him their trust.
Who shall therefore from Sion give
That health which hangeth on our belief.
When God shall take from His the smart,
Then will Jacob rejoice in heart.
Praise to God![62]
In the sandy desert of the metrical Psalters there are, however, some wells of living water. Such are the psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and his sister, and those of George Sandys. The metre, for the most part, as well as the language, makes them unsuitable for use in the congregation; but I think many readers will be glad to see the following verses. The verses from Ps. xix. are by Sir Philip, and the version of Ps. xciii. is by the Countess of Pembroke.
PSALM XIX
The heavenly frame sets forth the fame
Of Him that only thunders;
The firmament, so strangely bent,
Shows His hand working wonders.
Day unto day doth it display,
Their course doth it acknowledge:
And night to night succeeding right
In darkness teach clear knowledge.
There is no speech, nor language, which
Is so of skill bereavèd,
But of the skies the teaching cries
They have heard and conceivèd.
There he no eyne, but read the line
From so fair book proceeding;
Their words be set in letters great
For everybody’s reading.
PSALM XCIII
Clothed with state and girt with might,
Monarch-like Jehovah reigns:
He who earth’s foundation pight,[63]
Pight at first, and yet sustains:
He whose stable throne disdains
Motion’s shock, and ages’ flight:
He who endless One remains,
One the same in changeless plight.
Rivers, yea, though rivers roar,
Roaring though sea-billows rise;
Vex the deep, and break the shore,
Stronger art Thou, Lord of skies.
Firm and true Thy promise lies
Now and still as heretofore:
Holy worship never dies
In Thy house where we adore.
George Sandys (1577-1643) was a true poet. Dryden called him ‘the best versifier of the former age,’ and Richard Baxter said, ‘I must confess after all that, next the Scripture poems, there are none so savoury to me as Mr. George Herbert’s and Mr. George Sandys’s.’ Charles the First comforted himself with Sandys’s psalms during his imprisonment at Carisbrooke.
He is even yet little known to our hymn-books, though a few of his psalms make, with a little adaptation, good hymns. The Methodist Hymn-book contains two—
Thou who art enthroned above[64] (Ps. xcii.).
Ye who dwell above the skies (Ps. cxlviii.).
His version of Ps. lxvi. also has some good lines. It begins—
Happy sons of Israel,
Who in pleasant Canaan dwell:
Fill the air with shouts of joy,
Shouts redoubled from the sky.
Sing the great Jehovah’s praise,
Trophies to His glory raise.
These quotations must suffice for the psalms of the period between the Old and New Versions. Those who are interested in this not very attractive literature will find specimens of the principal British and American writers in Holland’s Psalmists of Britain (1843), and Glass’s Story of the Psalters (1888). When one looks at the two authorized metrical versions, and the many attempts made to supplant them, it is difficult to understand how the Church could so long have clung to the metrical Psalter, and could be so slow to use a hymn-book. Keble says of his own version—‘It was undertaken, in the first instance, with a serious apprehension, which has since grown into a full conviction, that the thing attempted is, strictly speaking, impossible.’ Yet scores have made the same fruitless effort since Keble failed.
Apart from the psalm-versions there are few hymns of the sixteenth century. George Gascoigne (d. 1577), a lawyer, poet, and courtier of Elizabeth’s day, and a descendant of Sir William Gascoigne, the judge who committed Henry V, when Prince of Wales, to prison, wrote a poem entitled ‘Good Morrow,’ from which a good hymn has been made, which is in many of the better school hymnals.
You that have spent the silent night
In sleep and quiet rest,
And joy to see the cheerful light
That riseth in the East;
Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart,
Come help me now to sing;
Each willing wight come bear a part,
To praise the heavenly King.
Yet as this deadly night did last
But for a little space,
And heavenly day, now night is past,
Doth show his pleasant face:
So must we hope to see God’s face
At last in heaven on high,
When we have changed this mortal place
For Immortality.
Unto which joys for to attain,
God grant us all His grace,
And send us, after worldly pain,
In heaven to have a place:
Where we may still enjoy that light,
Which never shall decay:
Lord, for Thy mercy lend us might
To see that joyful day.[65]
Thomas Campion (1567-1619), a doctor of medicine, wrote some lovely hymns, ‘admirable for their union of melodious simplicity, beauty, and strong common sense.’[66] Josiah Conder included one in the section for Private Worship of the Congregational hymn-book, 1836.[67]
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast.
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!
Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the Blessed only see.
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!
Here is another of Campion’s hymns.
View me, Lord, a work of Thine!
Shall I then lie drowned in night?
Might Thy grace in me but shine,
I should seem made all of light.
Cleanse me, Lord, that I may kneel
At Thine altar, pure and white:
They that once Thy mercies feel,
Gaze no more on earth’s delight.
Worldly joys, like shadows, fade,
When the heavenly light appears:
But the covenants Thou hast made,
Endless, know nor days nor years.
In Thy Word, Lord, is my trust,
To Thy mercies fast I fly;
Though I am but clay and dust,
Yet Thy grace can lift me high.
Campion is not mentioned in the Dictionary of Hymnology, but he deserves a place there.
One other hymn must be mentioned, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home.’ It is found in a MS. preserved in the British Museum, with the title ‘A Song Mad, by F. B. P. To the tune of Diana.’ Who the author was no one knows, but internal evidence indicates that he was a devout Roman Catholic. In the Arundel Hymns it is attributed to Father Laurence Anderton, alias John Beverley, S.J. The MS. has twenty-six verses, of which nineteen were printed in London in 1601. The hymn is probably based upon a passage in the Meditations of St. Augustine. The popular modern hymn, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home,’ which is now believed to have been written by Joseph Bromehead, Vicar of Eckington, near Sheffield, was no doubt suggested by this hymn, or one of the various versions of it, but has little verbal agreement except in the first and last verses. I give a portion of the original poem.
Hierusalem, my happie home,
When shall I come to thee,
When shall my sorrowes haue an end,
Thy ioyes when shall I see.
O happie harbour of the saints,
O sweete and pleasant soyle,
In thee noe sorrow may be founde,
Noe greefe, noe care, noe toyle.
Hierusalem, Hierusalem,
God grant I once may see
Thy endless ioyes, and of the same
Partaker aye to bee.
Thy wales are made of precious stones,
Thy bulwarkes diamondes square,
Thy gates are of right orient pearle,
Exceeding riche and rare.
Thy terrettes and thy pinnacles
With carbuncles doe shine,
Thy verie streetes are paued with gould,
Surpassinge cleare and fine.
Thy houses are of ivorie,
Thy windoes cristale cleare,
Thy tyles are mad of beaten gould,
O God that I were there.
There David standes with harpe in hand,
As maister of the queere,
Tenne thousand times that man were blest
That might this musicke hear.
Our Ladie singes magnificat
With tune surpassinge sweete,
And all the virgins beare their parts
Sitinge aboue her feete.
Te Deum doth Sant Ambrose singe,
Sant Augustine dothe the like;
Ould Simeon and Zacharie
Haue not their songes to seeke.
There Magdalene hath left her mone,
And cheerefullie doth singe,
With blessed Saints whose harmonie
In everie streete doth ringe.
Hierusalem, my happie home,
Would God I were in thee,
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy ioyes that I might see.
Finis. Finis.[68]