which changed its very structure, was Ravenscroft's version of Tallis's eighth tune. It will be found in the first appendix to the Life of Ken, by a Layman.' Ken's devotional poems were very numerous. To make and sing them was his recreation and chief delight; his anodyne in seasons of wearying pain; his comfort through many a sleepless night. The nightingale warbling in the darkness troubles itself well nigh as little about what listening men may think of its song, as Ken of the impression which his hymns might leave upon the ears of critics. His poems,' as Keble truly says, are not popular, nor probably ever will be. . . . The narrative is often cumbrous, and the lyric verse not seldom languid and redundant.' That simpler style, in which all his best verses are written, is constantly interrupted by a strained and artificial diction, in which he imitated Cowley, with none of Cowley's brilliancy. Ken himself was not blind to their faults. More than once, he says, he was inclined to burn them, and only refrained from doing so in the thought that verses which reflected the glow and raptures of his own soul might kindle other hearts also. And though his poems may sometimes be greatly improved by the judicious curtailment or omission of stanzas,2 and would no doubt have gained greatly in point of harmony by careful revision; all, in this age at least, will agree that no hand but that of the original author is qualified for such a work. When John Byrom was asked to revise these poems, he made the only proper answer— Patchwork improvements in the modern style, Do but deface it. Poems to revise That Ken has wrote-another Ken must rise.3 There can be no object in quoting from the more prosaic or inharmonious verses which he often wrote. Many, however, of his lines are very beautiful. 1 Qu. Rev. 32, 230. 2 Compare, for instance, his 'Days Numbered' in 'Preparatives for Death,' Hawkins's ed. of Ken's Works, iv. 17, with the same poem, abbreviated by omissions, in Selections from the Poetical Works of Ken. Byrom's Works, B. Poets (Chalmers's ed.), xv. 265. From Hymns on the Festivals': God sweetly calls us every day, Why should we love the night? From 'God's Attributes or Perfections' :— God's children love all human race, The greater love they gain : Saints in whom love is most express'd, My God, Thou only art Able to know, keep, rule the heart; Which I myself to keep despair. No rebels then will garrison my breast, Beneath Almighty wings my heart will live at rest.3 Ken, in the dedication prefixed to his works, compares himself, not (he modestly adds) in gifts or graces, but in the circumstances of his later life, to Gregory of Nazianzum. Like him, he had been driven from his episcopal see; like him, he delighted to beguile the pains, the austerities, the infirmities of the seclusion in which he spent his declining years with hymns and 'songs devout.' But there were points of far more than outward resemblance between Ken and Gregory, or between Ken and Chrysostom, Gregory's still more distinguished successor in the bishopric of Constantinople. The ascetic temperament, the spirit, bold and fearless on occasion, but delighting above all in tranquil, contemplative reveries, the poetical imagination, the somewhat cramped 3 Id. iv. 201. 2 Id. ii. 89. 1 Byrom's Works, B. Poets, i. 383. 4 If Gregory's narrative poems were sometimes (Milman, Early Christianity, iii. 468) weak and garrulous, some of his hymns, as for instance one for the evening (Saunders' Evenings with the S. Poets, 25) are among the finest that have come down to us. In these points too Ken resembled his prototype. sacerdotalism and anxious orthodoxy, combined with utter aversion to controversy, and a tendency to view all Christian doctrines with sole reference to their bearing upon sanctity of life-all these features are observable in Ken as in Gregory and Chrysostom. Alexander Knox, in a letter to Hannah More,' has left some excellent remarks upon what he calls the 'Chrysostomian piety' which he finds more conspicuous in Ken than in almost any other English writer. Without in any way undervaluing the great work which Protestantism had done and was doing, he saw what seemed to him a frequent deficiency in it, as compared with some of the higher types of excellence in the primitive Church. There appeared to him too little attention to anything except the salvation of the individual, an anxious self-seeking which might be of an exalted kind, and fruitful in works of righteousness, but which falls short of a higher standard, not incapable of being attained. There was also an intellectual restlessness and disquietude tending to similar results. But there was a primitive excellence in the Christian Church-a sublimity as well as simplicity of piety; in which, without any puzzle of the head, there was a seraphic glow of heart, a fire of divine love, without the smoke of dark dogmas.' He finds it blessedly enshrined in our Liturgy;' he finds it embodied in a very high degree in Jeremy Taylor among ourselves, in Arndt among the Lutherans; and yet even in Jeremy Taylor a little overborne by the brilliancy of learning, philosophy, and mental ardour. He finds it-not, however, without some counterbalancing elements derived from Calvinism or from philosophy-in Leighton, Worthington, John Smith, Cudworth, Baxter, Doddridge. Examples of it were more frequent, he thought, among thoroughly pious Romanists. The surrender of their intellects to the Church on all doubtful and controverted questions might seem to have 'left their hearts at full liberty to pursue undividedly their holy and happy instincts of spiritual devotion and love. . . . Doubtless, the Roman Church is like a garden overrun with weeds, neither pleasant to the eyes nor good for food; but then there are in this garden some old fruit trees which bear fruit of extraordinary 1 'On the Design of Providence respecting the Christian Church,' Remains, iii. 102-230. 1 mellowness.' But none, he thought, in any Church have approached nearer the primitive warmth of soul than Bishop Ken. George Hickes did a service to the Nonjuring and other Anglican Churchmen of his age, in the hymns provided for their use in his ' Book of Devotion.' 2 Few, however, if any of them, were his own composition. They were mostly written by John Austin, adapted to the use of Reformed Churches by Theophilus Dorrington.3 The book passed through several cditions, and the hymns well deserve notice, both for their intrinsic merit, and as being one of the first indications that a new style of hymnody would gradually supplant those ⚫ metrical versions of the Psalms which hitherto had been almost in sole use among English Churchmen. A few examples may be given : Hymn I., out of 'Office for Sunday Mattins' :— Behold we come, dear Lord, to Thee, And bow before Thy throne; We come to offer on our knee Whate'er we have, whate'er we are, Thy bounty freely gave; Thou dost us here in mercy spare, And wilt hereafter save. Come then, my soul, bring all thy powers, And grieve thou hast no more, And thy great God adore. But, above all, prepare thine heart On this, His own blest day, Hymn VI., out of 'Office for Sunday Lauds':— 1 P. 226. Hark, my soul, how every thing Strives to serve our bounteous King : 2 'Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices,' 1701. 3 Roundell Palmer, note to Hymn lxx. in his Book of Praise. C. B. Pearson in Oxford Essays, 1858, 141. Each a double tribute pays, Nature's sweet and chiefest quire Though their voices lower be, All the flowers that gild the spring Only we can scarce afford Wake for shame, my sluggish heart, Call all nature to thy aid, Since 'twas He whole nature made; Join in one eternal song, Who to one God all belong. Live for ever, glorious Lord! Live by all thy works ador'd! One in Three and Three in One, Thrice we bow to Thee alone. The last quotation shall be simply a doxology, which has the merit of being at once terse and fervid. It is from the Tuesday Compline :— All glory to the sacred Three, One ever living Lord; As at the first, still may He be |