Which knew no birth, and never shall expire ! Electing Goodness, firm and free, My whole salvation hangs on thee, Ah! tell me, Lord, that Thou hast chosen me! Then, when Thy summons bids me come up higher, Well pleased I shall from life retire, And join the burning hosts, beheld at distance now. Augustus Montague Toplady. 1759—1774. NOTES. HYMN 11.-Part of Hymn No. 100 in Mant's Ancient Hymns, &c. Three stanzas out of eight are omitted. IV. The text of this hymn is from The Devout Chorister (Masters; Third Edition, 1854); in which book it was first published; and the author's name is given, by his kind permission. v.-The text of this is from the Fifth Edition (Newcastle, no date, but water-mark 1810); of the Rev. Thomas Cotterill's Psalms and Hymns. VII. From Hymns for the Church of England (Longman, 1857). The first and third stanzas are adapted, by Mr. Darling, from Nos. 49 and 36 of John Quarles' Divine Ejaculations. VIII. From John and Charles Wesley's Collection of Psalms and Hymns (the first edition published in 1741). The Psalm, as rendered by Watts, is in six stanzas, of which the Wesleys omitted the first and fourth, and varied the second by substituting the well-known lines, "Before Jehovah's awful throne, Ye nations, bow with sacred joy;" for Watts' original, Nations, attend before his throne The only other change is the word "shall" instead of "must," XII. Three stanzas out of six. The first, second, and fifth of Watts' are omitted. xv.-Nine stanzas out of twelve (the first, third, and eleventh of Watts' being omitted). The word "God" is brought down in to the first line, from the first (omitted) stanza, instead of "Him." XVI. The four first stanzas of Hymn No. 11, Book II. in Gibbons' Hymns adapted to Divine Worship (London, 1784); sometimes wrongly ascribed to Berridge. Gibbons has seven stanzas. XXIII.-Four out of five stanzas, Lyte's fourth being omitted. XXVIII. The first thirteen out of forty-two stanzas. The poem is the last of several in Skelton's Appeal to Common Sense on the Subject of Christianity. (Dublin, 1784.) XXXII.-Stanzas 1, 6, 9, and 10, of a poem in ten stanzas (No. 68 of T. Grinfield's Century of Sacred Songs). I have adhered to the selection made by the late Rev. John Hampden Gurney in the Marylebone Hymn-Book of 1851. XXXIII. My only authority for ascribing this to Tate is the late Rev. Edward Bickersteth; but the authorship seems probable, as this is one of the hymns included in the "Supplement to the New Version," for the use of which Brady and Tate obtained from Queen Anne an Order in Council, dated the 30th July, 1703. G G HYMN XXXIV. The text is that of the fourth edition (1743) of Hymns and Sacred Poems, by John and Charles Wesley; differing in one word only ("Heavenly," instead of "Inner," in the second line of the last stanza) from the first edition, published in 1739. The common variation, beginning, "Hark, the herald angels sing," is probably by Martin Madan (1760), who, besides altering several lines, has left out part (but not the whole) of the two last stanzas, which are usually omitted at the end of modern editions of the New Version of the Psalms. The word "welkin," in the first line, is open to criticism, but in other respects I prefer Wesley's original to Madan's variation. XXXVIII.-From Christian Lyrics (Norwich: J. Fletcher; 1860). Mr. Sears is an American writer, and I have not been able to obtain access to his original text. XL.-From the volume, published in 1829 (London: Cadell, & Co.), under the title Spirit of the Psalms, which is not to be confounded with the work of the Rev. H. F. Lyte, afterwards published under the same title, in 1834. XLI. This hymn is from Hymns Ancient and Modern, for Use in the Services of the Church (London: Novello; 1861). I am indebted to the Rev. Sir Henry Baker, Bart. (one of the editors of that collection), for the permission, which he has kindly obtained for me from the author, to publish his name, as well as for the authentication of the text. I am also indebted to him and his co-editors for their consent to the use which I have made of this hymn, and of three others, contributed by Sir Henry Baker himself to the same collection, to which he has allowed me to affix his name. XLII.-Five out of seven stanzas. Those omitted are Doddridge's second and sixth. XLVI.-Five stanzas out of a hymn which, as first published in 1740 (then beginning "Glory to God, and praise, and love"), consisted of eighteen stanzas; and which, in the seventeenth edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Pine, Bristol; 1773), was reduced to eleven stanzas; then beginning as in the present text. In the Hymn-Book for Methodists, it consists of ten stanzas; one of which is taken from the earlier edition, and is not in that of 1773. XLVIII. Four out of five stanzas. of Watts. LII. Five out of eight stanzas. fifth, and seventh of Watts. LV. Six out of seven stanzas. Newton. That omitted is the fourth Those omitted are the fourth, That omitted is the third of LVII. This hymn, as here given, was introduced into the Marylebone Collection (1851) from a poem of some length, published in 1831, in The Iris, a volume edited by the Rev. Thomas Dale. The text (which will be found at page 139 of that volume) is unaltered, except that the first word "Saviour," has been brought down from a preceding line, in substitution for the words "And then," so as to give to these stanzas an independent beginning. LVIII.-Nine out of eleven stanzas. Those omitted are the fifth and seventh of Mrs. Barbauld. HYMN LX.-I have not succeeded in tracing the author, or the original text of this hymn. The earliest edition of the New Version of the Psalms, to which Mr. Sedgwick has been able to find it appended, was published in 1796. The three first stanzas were printed, with music, in the Christian's Magazine, vol. 3, 1762. The "Gloria," which constitutes the fourth stanza, goes with the hymn in some modern books, and suits it so well, that I have ventured to retain it. This "Gloria" is certainly by Charles Wesley; it will be found at page 242 of the fourth edition (1743) of the Hymns and Sacred Poems, by the two brothers. LXI.-This hymn (No. 2, in the Rev. John Chandler's Hymns of the Primitive Church) is, as stated by himself in his Preface to that work, a variation from a translation of the same Latin ́original, by the Rev. Isaac Williams; which had previously appeared in the British Magazine, and which is No. 2 in Mr. Williams' Hymns Translated from the Parisian Breviary (Rivingtons; 1839). LXII.-From the Marylebone Collection of 1851, edited by the late Rev. J. H. Gurney, the present Bishop of Durham, and the present Dean of Lincoln. It is there attributed to "A. Gray." I have not been able to learn anything about the author, nor to discover the original text, if previously published. LXIV.-Mr. Neale's hymn is divided into thirteen unequal parts, the first seven of which constitute the present text. LXVI. I have taken this hymn from Mr. Martineau's Hymns for the Christian Church and Home (Longman; twelfth edition; 1856), in which it is No. 234. The Authoress (whose genuine text I have not been able to verify), is, as I have reason to believe, an American lady. LXIX.-Four out of nine stanzas, of unequal length, from Bíshop Mant's Holydays of the Church; or, Scriptural Narratives and Biographical Notices, vol. ii. p. 536 (Oxford: Parker; 1831). LXX.-The Offices of John Austin, containing hymns of striking excellence, were adapted to the use of members of the Church of England, first by Theophilus Dorrington, and afterwards by the Nonjuring Bishop Hickes. Dorrington, in some cases, altered Austin's hymns; Hickes almost always reprinted them without alteration. This hymn is No. 31 in Austin's Offices, where it consists of seven stanzas; the first of which was omitted, and some of the others slightly altered, by Charles Wesley. The present text is taken from the first edition (1739) of the Wesleys' Hymns and Sacred Poems, page 130, where it is entitled Hymn to Christ; altered from Dr. Hickes' "Reformed Devotions." LXXI.-The text of this hymn is given from Toplady's Collection, published in 1776. Whether it is Mr. Bakewell's genuine work, or was altered by Toplady, is not certain. The hymn, as first published by Madan, in 1760, wants the last stanza, and differs from the present text in some other respects. Both Madan and Toplady were friends of the author: and the probability seems to be, that it was revised and altered by the author himself, for Toplady's Collection. LXXIII.-Twenty-three out of twenty-eight stanzas, communicated by Mr. Turner, one of the authors, to Dr. Rippon in 1791 (See Rippon's Baptist Annual Register, vol. iii. p. 471). The |