I would gladly linger awhile longer among these ancient hymns; but except as they have passed into our hymnals in the last two centuries, they hardly belong to my subject.
LITERATURE
The following notes may be useful to some readers:—Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymnologicus (Leipsic, 1841-55); Mone’s Hymni Latini Medii Aevi (Freiburg, 1853-4-5), Christ’s Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum; Trench’s Sacred Latin Poetry (1849): Duffield’s Latin Hymns (1889); Macdonald’s Latin Hymns of the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-book (1899).
Neale’s Mediaeval Hymns, Hymns of the Eastern Church, &c.; Chandler’s Hymns of the Primitive Church; William’s Hymns from the Parisian Breviary (1839); Chambers’s Lauda Syon; Mant’s Ancient Hymns from the Roman Breviary; Chatfield’s Songs and Hymns of the Greek Christian Poets; Mrs. Charles’s Christian Life in Song; Moorsom’s Renderings of Church Hymns. See also articles in Dictionary of Hymnology, on ‘Greek,’ ‘Latin,’ and ‘Syriac,’ ‘Hymnody,’ ‘Te Deum,’ &c.
It should be remembered that many of the Breviary hymns are not ancient, but belong to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
III
Early Modern Hymns
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: