gations again in their Hymn 549, razeed from six lines eights, to the ordinary long metre. This time they credit it to Charles Wesley. 549. BAPTIST COLLECTION. L. M. C. WESLEY. 1 JESUS, thy boundless love to me No thought can reach, no tongue declare; Unite my thankful heart to thee, And reign without a rival there. 2 Thy love, how cheering is its ray! All pain before its presence flies; Care, anguish, sorrow, melt away Where'er its healing beams arise. 3 O, let thy love my soul inflame, And to thy service sweetly bind; 4 Thy love, in sufferings, be my peace; METHODIST COLLECTION. 1 JESUS, thy boundless love to me No thought can reach, no tongue declare ; O knit my thankful heart to thee! 2 O Love, how cheering is thy ray! 3 In suff'ring be thy love my peace, In death as life be thou my guide, Our compilers here certainly evince that they have no disposition to array themselves in borrowed plumes, else had they claimed for themselves the authorship of these lines. Indeed, had they not affixed C. Wesley to the hymn, we should have supposed that they had really made a translation from the German. There is a sad falling off, however, from the nervous Gerhard in our brethren's prosaic, common-place sentiment: Transfuse it through my inmost frame, And mould me wholly to thy mind!" and in the last line,-O lame and impotent conclusion, "Thy love shall be in heaven my song." Will it be asking too great a favour to request that the name of C. Wesley be not affixed to this doggerel in subsequent editions of "The Psalmist?" We make the request with the more boldness, as he really had no hand in it, and the translation which has been. parodied thus vilely, was really made by his elder brother. It might seem like an unwarrantable interference to suggest that it is hardly fair to make the public pay for the same thing in two places, and that therefore one or the other version might be cancelled hereafter. But we will not take so great a liberty. Hymn 299 our Baptist brethren have credited to " Urwick's Collection." We are not anxious to claim it, as found in their book, for C. Wesley, from whose pen it proceeded. We submit to the compilers, however, whether, in honesty, Urwick's alterations entitle him to the authorship: AS FOUND IN THE BAPT. COL. 1 JESUS, thou source of calm repose, 2 Jesus, our Comforter thou art ; In weakness, our almighty power; Our refuge in temptation's hour; METHODIST COLLECTION. 1 THOU hidden source of calm repose, My help and refuge from my foes, 3 Jesus, my all in all thou art, My rest in toil, my ease in pain; In war, my peace; in loss my gain; In weakness, my almighty power; My light, in Satan's darkest hour; The next hymn (300) in the Baptist Collection is also C. Wesley's. It is our No. 478, "Jesus, the conqueror, reigns." The alterations are few and unimportant; yet it is credited to "Campbell's Collection." We are not surprised at the mistake of our compilers in assigning the hymn beginning, "Blow ye the trumpet, blow," to Toplady. It is so credited in most of the books, probably because it found its way into a collection published by that gentleman. It was written, however, by C. Wesley; and is found in a small volume entitled "Hymns for New-Year's Day," published in 1755. See Creamer's Hymnology, p. 185. By the way, although it is a little foreign to our present purpose, we have in the volume before us a striking illustration of the ease with which hymn-compilers may be misled. Their 414th hymn is credited to "Bickersteth's Collection," where doubtless they found it. Their 489th is credited to Collyer. Unfortunately, they are the same, with variations. Had not the first line been altered by Mr. Bickersteth, our Baptist brethren would have perceived that they were again giving their people the same hymn in two places. The reader may compare a couple of verses: L. M. BICKERSTETH'S COL. The Wanderer invited. 1 WANDERER from God, return, return, 489 L. M. COLLYER. 1 Return, my wandering soul, return, 3 Wanderer from God, return, return; But to return. Charles Wesley's 3 Return, my wandering soul, return; beautiful poem, beginning, "Depth of mercy!-can there be," a part of which forms our 91st Hymn, is credited by our Baptist brethren to Lutheran Collection." We hope that error may be corrected. Its authorship is correctly given in the Congregational Collection, (New-Haven, 1848.) Three verses of that well-known hymn of Charles Wesley's "Father, I stretch my hands to thee," the authorship of which was never before doubted, so far as we know, are here assigned to "Percy Chapel Collection." The compilers may find the entire hymn in the Methodist Collection, No. 131, and in that of the English Wesleyans, No. 666. is another of C. Wesley's hymns. It is credited by our Baptist brethren to the Methodist Collection, and the line "Till thou thy perfect love impart," is thus altered : "Till thou the Father's love impart." Hymn 677, commencing "Thou fount of blessing, God of love," and said to be taken from "Episcopal Collection," is also Charles Wesley's. It is 118 in the Methodist Collection, and begins, as written by the author "Being of beings, God of love." The alterations are few and unimportant. Hymn 730, entitled, Encouragement to Faithfulness, contains four short-metre verses, and is credited to Montgomery. But the reader shall see it. 2 "Be faithful unto death, And thou shalt wear this glorious wreath, 3 'Tis thus the righteous Lord 4 Who conquer in his might They claim a kingdom in his right, If the reader will now turn to the fourth stanza of the second part of Hymn 401 in the Methodist Collection, he will find the first and second verses verbatim. It is C. Wesley's hymn, written originally with the title, "For the Watch-Night." It is found in Montgomery's Selection, but not marked as his, and the affixing his name to it in the collection before us must have arisen from sheer carelessness. Nor know we how else to account for the word "Anon.," written over the beautiful hymn beginning Spirit of power and might, behold." This was written by Montgomery, and so claimed and published under his own supervision, in the Christian Psalmist. Finally, Charles Wesley's hymn, (551 in the Methodist Collection,) "And am I born to die?" is abbreviated into six short-metre verses, four from the first part. and two from the second, and the whole credited to "Lutheran Collection," in the volume before us. The edition to which our references apply, is the duodecimo of 1844; and we take our leave of it in the confident expectation that in future issues, Messrs. Stow and Smith will fulfil their promise, and that "the errors" thus pointed out will be, in their own language, "promptly corrected." ART. VIII.-THE PLANET LE VERRIER. Comptes-Rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences.-Paris, 1846, 1847, 1848. No discovery in science ever caused so great a sensation, among those capable of estimating its importance, as that of the Planet to which the name of Neptune has been given by some, but which will hereafter be distinguished by that of Le Verrier. The circumstances of this discovery may be briefly stated as follows:-In comparing the observed motions of the planet Herschel with the places indicated by theory, and after allowing for all the disturbances produced by the influence of the known bodies of the solar system, certain anomalies and discrepancies were detected. It required little skill to infer that these differences between the calculated ephemerides and the results of direct observation, must be caused by the action of some body or bodies as yet unknown to astronomers. In this opinion, therefore, almost all who considered the subject in a proper light concurred, and hopes were entertained that, by means of the recent improvements in the construction of the two kinds of telescope, and the systematic mapping of the heavens now going on in various observatories, some wandering body might be detected, which, after observations of sufficient duration, would be found to account for the anomalies in the motions of Herschel. No one, however, as far as we know, ventured, prior to 1845, to state that, from the consideration of these irregularities themselves, the place, the distance, and the mass of the disturbing body, might be inferred approximately. It was even farther from the hopes of the most sanguine cultivators of physical astronomy that such investigations might be pursued so successfully, that a telescope might, by their aid, be directed to the heavens, with a certainty, almost absolute, of finding the body in question within its field of view. The scientific world was therefore startled with the intelligence that a German observer, acting under the published directions of a French analyst, did, at the first trial, find the planet whose influence on Herschel had been indicated by the irregularities of which we have spoken. The surprise was even enhanced by the fact, that the same discovery had nearly been made by means of indications furnished by a mathematician of English birth. A discussion hence arose between France and England for the merit of priority; but, however hard it may be to the Englishman who was so near the prize, the honours must be awarded to the Frenchman. This is more justly his due, because he had from time to time, at the weekly sittings of the Academy of Sciences, made |