have shown her great and most judicious kindness, and I verily believe her worthy of it, both in disposition and talents." While Heber was occupied in consulting his friends as to a lithographic edition of his poems, the call to Calcutta stopped this and other literary works. The MS. collection was published by Mr. Murray after his death, in 1827, under the title of Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. Of the whole number, he had written fifty-seven and Milman twelve, and twenty-nine had been taken from other sources. One he adapted from Jeremy Taylor; one was Sir Walter Scott's. All are still in common use in Great Britain and America.1 Milman's appeared again in the collected edition of his Poetical Works, published in three volumes in 1837. His "Bound upon the accursed tree," "When our heads are bowed with woe," and "Ride on, ride on in majesty!" deserve all Heber's praise. In one of his bright letters to Miss Charlotte Dod, written from Bodryddan, his father-in-law's place in North Wales, Heber thus reported his action as to the hymns :— "BODRYDDAN, 25th October. Many thanks, my dear Charlotte, for your beautiful drawing, and the kind and entertaining verses which followed it. Till I heard of you at Cheltenham, I could hardly feel sure of your really going there after so many delays, and as I have for some time thought such a journey likely to do much good, both to you and your father, I was sincerely glad to receive a letter from you with that postmark. I do not think that your account of the society there, with the exception of your travelled beau, indicates anything very lively, though in expense, and I hope, therefore, in splendour, the Vittoria Hotel seems equal to anything at Brighton, Turnbridge or Spa. But though I do not belong to that sect of doctors or doctresses who reckon stupidity conducive to health either of body o: mind, I can easily believe that some degree of quiet is desirable for both, and that you may derive more advantage from early walks, sensible conversation, and moderate gaiety than if you had been there in the full tide of the season, going down twelve dances a night, raffling every morning, and environed 1 Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 503. by a whole ring of Irish baronets and staff officers. I am glad you are going to try the tepid bath, which I know by experience to be, after illness or any agitation of mind (of which last, at least, you have had a full share this summer), even more bracing and invigorating than the cold. "It will be strange, indeed, if your present journey and regimen does not put you in, at least, as good a plight as you were before your sister's illness. Of her it gave me sincere pleasure to hear a continued favourable report from Anne and Soby,1 whom I met, as you may have heard, at Wynnstay,2 and afterwards at Acton, both well and in good looks, though grievously knocked up, and Anne even more so than Soby. Emily's courage failed her, or her love of gaiety gave way to her prudence, and I was by myself at both these places. I have not, however, again abandoned her, and we have both joined in excusing ourselves from Gwersyllt, whither we were asked during the week for the christening ball at Wynnstay. The heir, for whose future proficiency in the Welsh tongue I was, as you may recollect, a sponsor at the Eisteddfod, is certainly the greatest little boy of his age of whom I have heard since the days of Prince Gargantua, inasmuch as he weighs four-and-twenty pounds, being very nearly as much as his sister at sixteen months old. "Emily contrives to ride out every day notwithstanding some of the worst weather that I have ever witnessed in October. Old Sir R. Hill used to tell me that during an experience of near seventy years of his own observations, preceded by forty more of a still older Mr. Romaine, there had never failed to be twenty-one fine (or, at least, fair) days in this month according to the old style, reckoning from the 10th of October to the 10th of November. I have myself since fancied that I have observed the same thing, but I am too careless a naturalist to make my observations very valuable. "I worked hard during the week I was by myself at home, but while in this place, and removed from the necessary books of reference, I have been busy preparing a stock of sermons for the remainder of the winter, which will, on my return to Hodnet, leave me at liberty to bestow a more undivided attention on Bishop Taylor's Life. Talking of bishops, I have had, since we met, a correspondence with the Bishop of London on the subject of my hymns, which cannot, with strict propriety, be used in churches, and certainly could never obtain a general admittance 1 Sobieski. 2 The seat of the Wynns. 3 The seat of the Cunliffes. there without a regular license from the King, such as was given to Tate and Brady for the new version of the Psalms. On this account I wrote to the Bishop, enclosing my four first hymns as a sample, and asking his advice and assistance. His answer is very kind and encouraging. He suggests some alterations in the lines I sent him, and recommends me to prepare the whole collection for publication, under the idea that, if it became, in the first instance, well known and popular, less difficulty would be found in obtaining such a license as I wish for. I mean to follow his advice, at all events, so far as bestowing some of my leisure during the next few months in polishing and completing the series, but I am rather inclined to believe that when this is done it will be best to lay the MS. once before him and some other bishops, whose opinion, once secured, will have most weight with their brethren. If the object is answered of obtaining a well-selected and sanctioned book of hymns for the Church of England, to supersede the unauthorised and often very improper compositions now in use, I can truly say that I am extremely indifferent whether I myself or anybody else has the credit of the business, and I think it probable that many of my superiors would concur in the measure more heartily if it appeared to proceed from themselves, and at their own suggestion, than if it appeared first as the work of a private clergyman. This is, however, all confidential. ". . . I yesterday renewed my acquaintance with the African and Asiatic traveller Mr. Banks, whom we were to have met at Dinbryn. He was very young and good-looking when I saw him last, but is now so dried and sunburnt by the sun and wind of the desert, that I should not have known him. He is very lively and entertaining, full of knowledge and information relative to the wild countries which he has traversed. On the Nile he advanced farther even than Burckhardt, of whom he speaks very highly, but says that the difficulties, insults, and injuries which are so pathetically described in the volume which I lent you were mostly brought on him by his poverty and the meanness of his appearance. He speaks well of the Nubians on the whole, but says that they, like other people, pay respect to wealth and apparent rank, and are most hospitable when it is made worth their while. The ruins are very splendid, and very strange, and even awful objects in a country now so poor and desolate. Among the Arabs and the country south and east of Palestine he was most struck with the tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor, which is still, like that of Abraham at Hebron, held in honour by the Mahometans. All the towns keep their old names-Heshbon, Moab, etc., and one of the Arab sovereigns, with whom he spent some time, sang poems of his own composition to the harp, as David might have done. One of these was on a former defeat of his own tribe, and put Mr. B. much in mind of the lament over Saul and Jonathan.1 He complained a good deal of hardship, both in bodily fatigue and being almost eat up with vermin, but met with no very serious danger. He was not near Parga at the time of its evacuation, but believes, from all he heard, the story of the singular circumstances which attended it. Miss Shute will be glad to hear this. I was disappointed as well as yourself at not seeing my review of Wesley in the last number of the Quarterly. Gifford acknowledges having received it in due time, so that I am exculpated. It is, however, to appear in the next. "We leave this place Thursday next, and pass two nights at Hawarden 2 in our way home. When do you leave Cheltenham ? Believe me, dear Charlotte, ever yours affectionately, R. H." Of Heber's fifty-seven hymns at least thirty still hold a place in the front rank of popular approval and use, and are annotated under their respective first lines in Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology (1892). In this respect Heber stands side by side with Cowper, who contributed sixty-six hymns to the Olney collection. If we take as a test Roundell Palmer's Book of Praise, published in 1863, we find that at that time of 412 hymns which satisfied Lord Selborne's criteria of "a good hymn"-simplicity, freshness, and reality of feeling; a consistent elevation of tone, and a rhythm easy and harmonious, but not jingling or trivial-eleven are by Cowper and fourteen by Heber, whose "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," begins the book. That hymn was pronounced by Tennyson the finest in the language, and was sung at his funeral. "From Greenland's icy mountains still expresses best the great missionary call of the English-speaking peoples. If to these fourteen we add the hymns which have become more popular, especially with children, in the last thirty years, we have these: 1. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. 2. From Greenland's icy mountains. 1 The first "Song of the Bow," 2 Sam. i. 19-27. 66 4. The Son of God goes forth to war. 6. O Saviour, is Thy promise fled? 12. Thou art gone to the grave. 13. The winds were howling o'er the deep. 14. I praised the earth, in beauty seen. 15. Brightest and best of the sons of the morning. 16. By cool Siloam's shady rill. 17. Incarnate Word, who, wont to dwell. 18. The God of glory walks His round. 19. The Lord will come, the earth shall quake. 20. O Saviour, whom this holy morn. 21. Jerusalem, Jerusalem! enthroned once on high. 'Christopher North," in the Noctes, that strange medley, was the first critic to appreciate the poetic promise and power of Reginald Heber. The Palestine he happily describes as "a flight, as upon angel's wing, over the Holy Land. How fine the opening!" In Blackwood's Magazine for 1827 Professor Wilson recalls his intercourse, as a younger man who heard him recite the poem, with the writer of Palestine, which, he declares, the judgment of the world has placed at the very head of the poetry on divine subjects of this age. In an elaborate notice of the posthumous hymns he cites at length nineteen of Heber's from the 1827 collection, of which sixteen appear in our list above. In the history of English hymnody Reginald Heber holds a unique position, theological and literary. His collection, which began to be published in 1811, following all that was best in the Calvinistic school of Watts, Cowper, and Newton, and in the Arminian school of Wesley, was the first that was Catholic in the best sense of the word. And he was the first to give to English sacred poetry the lyric spirit as well as objective element which Walter Scott had begun, and Byron was applying in extreme forms. Hence his varied measures, which have been pronounced by one critic to be too flowing |