A learned friend whom we have consulted reminds us that besides the common Laburnum, which it is obvious could not be the wood referred to, there is another sort known to our gardeners as "Cytisus Alpinus," Scotch Laburnum, which grows into an actual tree, and supplies the hard black wood used by the French as ebony, and called by them False Ebony. It is of notorious hardness, and would have done well for bows. It is a native of Dauphiné, and indigenous also in the Alps, and, even if unknown in England in the reign of Edward III., was probably used in the Alpine countries for bows, and possibly imported into England for the same purpose.]
Replies.
MORAVIAN HYMNS.
(Vol. v., pp. 30. 113.)
As no reply has been given to your various correspondents on the above subject by one of the Brethren's church, permit a friend to give a few particulars with which he has become acquainted.
The first authorised English edition of the Moravian hymn-book is that of 1754, in the preface to which it is stated, that though there had been some English Collections of Hymns, partly original, and partly translations from the German, in use among the societies in union with the Brethren's church, "these were never regularly authorised, nor always passably reviewed." This book is a bulky 8vo.: it is in two parts; the first consisting of 380 pages, and the second of upwards of 400; together containing about 1200 hymns and Scripture anthems. The next edition appeared in 1769; and a third twenty years later. There have been several editions during the present century, in 8vo., 12mo., and 18mo., the last of which was published in 1819; and the preface states that the whole of the hymns had been revised by "Brother James Montgomery" of Sheffield.
To the inquiry of C. B. as to the honesty of Rimius, I would refer him to an excellent essay by the Rev. P. Latrobe, appended to Jackson's translation of the Life of Count Zinzendorf, by Spangenberg. (London, 1838.)
The memory of your Thurles correspondent is at fault, as may be supposed, from a twenty-five years' recollection. Bishop Gambold could not have published a Moravian hymn-book in 1738, for he did not join the Brethren's church till November, 1742; nor was he consecrated a bishop till 1754.—See his Life, appended to his Works, printed by S. Hazard, of Bath, 1789.
When Southey's animadversions appeared, they were replied to by "William Okely, M.D., Presbyter of the Brethren's Church, and Minister of their Congregation at Bristol," in a letter written in a good-humoured style, yet caustic withal. Unfortunately, as long as Southey's work lasts the poison will remain, while the antidote will be forgotten. The Doctor observes:
"What could possibly induce you, with such ill-judged eagerness, to rake into the kennels of oblivion? Why do you exhibit among your authorities the publications of such a vile fellow as Rimius? Was you not informed that he wrote with all the rancour of a renegado, and all the spite of an enemy? Is such a man proper to be publicly called forth as a witness against a church which he had deserted from no excess of virtue; against a church which, yourself being judge, has, by its silent but honorable exertions, first glorified God among the heathen, and then stimulated the rest of the Christian world to engage in similar attempts; against a church which, according to your own representations, possesses in herself the rare principle of gradual melioration, and, by a constant course of good living, has, in the face of watchful enemies, been able to rise superior to the consequences of former acknowledged indiscretions in language? Did you know that those writings were sinking fast into deserved neglect? That the copies had become so rare, that it was scarcely possible to obtain one? What merit, I ask you, is there in such publications, that you should thus studiously fish them out of the mud which was already closing over them, and after carefully scraping off the filth and mould which they had contracted, spread over them a coating of your own poetical varnish?
— — —