The origin of the Olney Hymns, and the proportion contributed by Cowper to that collection, have been already stated in the first part of this work.[870] Before, however, we enter on the subject of these hymns, it will not perhaps be thought uninteresting to present the reader with a brief historical account of Psalmody, and to detail the circumstances which first gave rise to a metrical version of the Psalms of David. We shall extract the information principally from "Warton's History of English Poetry." Sir John Hawkins may also be consulted on the same subject.[871]

The praise of having first effected a metrical version of the Psalms is to be assigned to France. About the year 1540, Clement Marot, valet of the bedchamber to Francis I., was the favourite poet of France. Being tired of the vanities of profane poetry, and anxious to raise the tone of public taste and feeling, he attempted a version of the Psalms into French rhyme, aided by Theodore Beza, and encouraged by the Professor of Hebrew in the University of Paris. This translation, not aiming at any innovation in the public worship, received the sanction of the Sorbonne, as containing nothing contrary to sound doctrine. Solicitous to justify this new application of his poetical powers, Marot expatiates in his dedication on the superior claims of sacred poetry, and observes "that the golden age would now be restored, when we should see the peasant at his plough, the carman in the streets, and the mechanic in his shop, solacing their toils with psalms and canticles; and the shepherd and shepherdess, reposing in the shade, and teaching the rocks to echo the name of the Creator."[872]

This version soon eclipsed the brilliancy of his madrigals and sonnets. In the festive and splendid court of Francis I. of a sudden nothing was heard but the psalms of Clement Marot. By each of the royal family and the principal nobility of the court, a psalm was chosen, and adapted to a popular ballad tune.

Calvin soon discovered what a powerful auxiliary psalm-singing might prove to the reformed religion, and immediately introduced Marot's version into his congregation at Geneva. They were adapted to plain and easy melodies[873] by Guillaume de Franc, and became a characteristic badge of the newly established worship. Germany next caught the sacred ardour, and the choral mode of service yielded to the attractive and popular character of a devotional melody, in which all might join, without distinction of rank or character. Psalms singing being thus associated with the Reformed religion, became interdicted to the Catholics under the most severe penalties.

This predilection for sacred song soon reached England. Previously however to this event, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the celebrated Lord Surrey had translated portions of the Psalms into metre. We subjoin a brief specimen from each of these writers, as illustrating the style and poetical pretensions of that early period of English literature.

Psalm xxxii.—Beati quorum, &c.

Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Psalm viii. LORD, WHAT IS MAN?

Earl of Surrey.

Sir Thomas Wyatt versified the seven Penitential Psalms, and died in 1542. The Earl of Surrey honoured his memory and virtues by three sonnets. Five years afterwards this distinguished and highly-gifted nobleman fell a victim to the tyranny of Henry VIII. and was beheaded, in the year 1547. He has left a version of the eighth, fifty-fifth, seventy-third, and eighty-eighth Psalms.[874]

The versification of Sternhold and Hopkins, the first that was ever used in the Church of England, next demands our attention. Sternhold was groom of the robes to Henry VIII. It is singular that both in France and England we are indebted to laymen and court poets for the introduction of what subsequently became so characteristic a feature in the reformed worship. Sternhold composed fifty-one Psalms, and dedicated his version to King Edward VI. His coadjutor in this undertaking was John Hopkins, a clergyman and school-master, in Suffolk. His poetry is rather of a higher order than that of Sternhold. He translated fifty-eight Psalms. To the above may be added the names of William Whyttingham, Dean of Durham, who added sixteen Psalms. The hundredth and hundred and nineteenth Psalms were included in this number. The rest were contributed by Robert Wisdome, Archdeacon of Ely; by William Hethe, a Scotch divine; John Pullain, and Thomas Churchyard, one of the pages of the Earl of Surrey. The entire version of the Psalter was at length published by John Day, in 1562, attached for the first time to the Common Prayer, and entitled, "The whole Booke of Psalmes, collected into English metre, by J. Sternhold, J. Hopkins, and others, conferred with the Ebrue, with apt Notes to sing them withall."

They are believed to contain some of the original melodies composed by French and German musicians. Many of them are the tunes of Gondinel and Le Jeune, who are among the first composers of Marot's French psalms. Not a few were probably imported by the Protestant refugees from Flanders, who fled into England from the persecution of the Duke of Alva. Some of our own musicians, such as Marbeck, Tallis, Tye, Parsons, and Munday, are supposed to have contributed their talents towards this undertaking.

We insert a few extracts from the original version, which in this refined age will appear rather ludicrous, and unsuited to the dignity of sacred poetry.

Psalm lxxxiv. 12.

Psalm lxviii. 37.

The miraculous march of Jehovah before the Israelites, through the wilderness, is thus represented by Sternhold.

Psalm lxviii.

Though this version has undergone many revisions, yet we fully agree with Warton, that its continued use is discreditable to the Church of England.[875] The translation, in its genuine and unsophisticated state, may justly indeed be considered, as he observes, no inconsiderable monument of our ancient literature, if not of our ancient poetry; and Fuller, likewise, remarks, "Match these verses for their ages, they shall go abreast with the best poems of those times." Still the spirit of the present age demands a higher standard both of poetical taste and devotional piety. They are too bald and jejune. The public feeling requires a more luminous exhibition of the great truths of the gospel, and a more experimental mode of delineating the trials and conflicts of the Christian warfare. No man has accomplished this important task more successfully than Watts. He has united the inspiration of poetry with the hallowed fire from the altar; and we hesitate not to assert, that if Watts had been a churchman, his version would have been in universal repute among us. It is already incorporated with most of the modern selections, where there is a return to the doctrines of the Reformation; and Sternhold and Hopkins are becoming increasingly unsuited to the advancing spirit of religious inquiry.

It was this conviction that induced Newton, in the year 1771, to engage in the composition of the Olney Hymns. They were designed to be the joint contribution of Newton and Cowper, but the morbid depression of the poet prevented the fulfilment of his share of the engagement. The total number contributed by Cowper has been variously stated. Hayley estimates it at sixty-eight. Other biographers have considerably reduced the amount. Some editions assign sixty-three; others insert sixty-five. There is at present no uniform standard, nor is there, to the best of our judgment, one single edition entitled to the credit of correctness.[876] We trust that we have the means of deciding this controverted subject. So far as the original edition, now lying before us, published, under the superintendence of Newton himself, by Johnson, the bookseller, and bearing the date of 1779, may be considered as the most authentic guide and criterion, we are enabled to state that the original number, distinguished by the initial letter C (Cowper's signature) is sixty-seven. If to the above we add a hymn not inserted in Newton's original edition, because subsequently composed, but which we have been enabled to authenticate as the production of Cowper, the total number, entitled to be ascribed to his pen, is sixty-eight. The hymn that we allude to begins,

"To Jesus, the crown of my hope."

It has already appeared before the public in some modern selections.

Of these hymns two were written at the period of Cowper's recovery at St. Albans, when his mind had received those gracious impressions which so powerfully influenced his future principles and writings. The first which Cowper ever composed was in allusion to this event. It is entitled "The Happy Change," and begins with the words,

"How bless'd thy creature is, O God."

The second was written when he contemplated retiring from the busy world. It is the beautiful and admired hymn,

"Far from the world, O Lord, I flee."

It may be interesting to the reader to learn, from concurring sources of information, that the celebrated hymn commencing with

"God moves in a mysterious way,"

was the last in the collection that he composed, and that it was written on the eve of that afflicting malady, which, occurring in Jan. 1773, suspended his powers for nearly seven successive years, though his correspondence was partially resumed with Mr. Hill and Mr. Unwin, from the year 1776. It was during a solitary walk in the fields that he had a presentiment of his approaching attack, and it is to this remarkable impression that we owe the origin of the above admired composition.

This hymn acquires a peculiar interest from the above incident, as well as from the unshaken faith and submission which it inculcates under the darkest dispensations. It seems as if God were giving him a chart of the voyage through those seas of trouble which he was about to navigate. No man could have written this hymn unless under the influence of a real or supposed special dispensation; and one end perhaps designed by it was, that Cowper should not only convey instruction to his own mind, but be made the instrument of consoling others. Few hymns have been more admired or more frequently quoted. It stands pre-eminent in that class which refer to the mysterious dealings of God, and is singularly qualified to invigorate the faith, to check the speculations of finite reason, and to lead the sufferer to repose on the unerring wisdom and goodness of God.

We must be careful, at the same time, how we reason on these subjects. That impressions of approaching trials may be sent from God, and subsequently be realised, we are by no means prepared to deny; but that they are often the occasion of fulfilling themselves, by acting strongly on a nervous temperament, we still more firmly believe. Again, that they frequently exist, and are not confirmed by the result, is well known. On the whole, we think reason as well as Scripture militates strongly against the doctrine of impressions. There is often an order and progression in them which, if minutely traced, prove their fallacy. Anxiety first suggests fear. A too great sensitiveness of feeling, an excursive imagination, and the want of a more vigorous exercise of faith next invest what was only imaginary, with reality. It thus acquires a form and existence, next expands into magnitude, and then rises into the power and ascendency of an absorbing idea; till, by a final deception, the impression is attributed to a divine hand. But who does not see that it is more justly to be ascribed to morbid sensibility, to nervous excitement, and, most of all, to the want of a firmer confidence in the power and goodness of God? The language of Scripture is decidedly opposed to the theory of impressions. The Bible directs us never to indulge in anticipations of evil, and to "take no thought for the morrow." An habitual trust in a superintending Providence will ever prove to be the best preservative against imaginary or real evil, and will fill the mind with the sweet calm of a holy and abiding peace.

In returning to the subject of the Olney Hymns, we may remark that those contributed by Cowper are, with some few exceptions, distinguished by excellences of no common kind. To the grace and beauty of poetical composition they unite the sublimity of religious sentiment, and the tenderness and fervour of devotional feeling. The nearer approaches to the Deity, which constitute the communion of the soul with God, and in which the believer is able to contemplate him as a reconciled Father in Christ Jesus; the sufficiency of divine grace to pardon all our sins, and to renew and sanctify the soul; the aspirations of prayer for the attainment of these blessings, and the song of praise in the consciousness of their enjoyment; the faith that reposes every care on his promises, and realizes their covenanted truth;—such are the subjects on which Cowper delights to dwell with a fervour which gives new wings to our devotion, and raises us above the enfeebling vanity of earthly things.

To specify all the hymns which lay claim to our admiration, would far exceed the limits of our plan, and interfere with the judgment and discrimination of the reader. We cannot, however, avoid referring to the following:—"O for a closer walk with God;" "Ere God had built the mountains:" "The Lord will happiness divine;" "There is a fountain fill'd with blood;" "Hark, my soul, it is the Lord;" "God of my life, to thee I call;" and especially, "The billows swell, the winds are high." There is a character of experimental piety pervading the hymns of Cowper, which singularly adapts them to meet the feelings of the contemplative or tried Christian. The deeper and more secret emotions of the soul; the vicissitudes of joy and sorrow; the fears that depress, and the hopes that soothe and tranquillize the mind, are treated with a fidelity and pathos, that render Cowper emphatically the poet of the heart. His hymns possess one peculiar feature which powerfully engages our sympathies. They disclose the inward recesses, and deep exercises of his own mind. But the sorrows of Cowper are now ended. Every trace is obliterated, except the record of them which is stamped on his interesting page. He has entered within the vail, where the mysterious dispensations of Providence, which once cast their deep shade on his chequered path, are vindicated and explained. He has joined "the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and an innumerable company of angels, and God, the judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant." There, freed from the sorrows and finite conceptions of erring reason, he unites with the redeemed of the Lord in that nobler song of praise, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."