A Dictionary of Hymnology

WHETHER hymns have a place in literature has been frequently questioned, perhaps generally doubted. Dr. Johnson’s objection to devotional lyrics, if rather confident than well considered, availed to set the current of opinion. Matthew Arnold, who avoided sacred themes no more in his verse than in his prose, professed “ very little sympathy ” with the provision offered in the hymn books. The critics, and literary folk generally, have maintained this unfriendly estimate, with an exception in favor of Latin hymns, or some of them. Distance lends enchantment, and perhaps that which is enshrined in a dead language, and yet has managed to keep itself in view for several centuries, is entitled to vastly more honor than any corresponding efforts in the vernacular ; yet if the Dies Iræ and the Stabat Mater be admitted within the gardens of the Muse, why should the modest claims of Rock of Ages or Lead, Kindly Light be denied consideration ?

The question is cumbered by the facts that hymns have a double character, and that many which make but the scantiest pretense to poetic grace have been valued and used for their religious quality. But that the entrance of this element necessarily involves the exclusion of the other is surely a large assumption. Recent researches have disclosed in the hymns of the Greek Church (though nobody but Dr. Neale has succeeded in translating them) beauties not inferior to those found in the canticles of Bernard and Adam of St. Victor. Some of the German songs of faith, if not yet classical, are in a way to become so, dating back to the early years of the Reformation; and one would think twice before assigning the importance of Kin Feste Burg solely to its historical associations. England, it is true, began much later, if we count out her somewhat wheezy and rheumatic psalm versions; so that Watts and Wesley may be esteemed parvenus beside Luther and Notker and John of Damascus. But its age is not the only point to be considered in a hymn, and within the last century or so Great Britain has made up for lost time, and come in a good second to long-industrious Germany. The other northern lands of Europe have also a record of their own, and France and Italy have done something.

All these various portions of the hymnic field are duly considered by Mr. Julian, whose work,¹ though he keeps a careful eye upon the lyrics “ contained in the hymn hooks of English-speaking countries and now in common use,” aims to be comprehensive, if not exhaustive. He and his co-workers, especially his indefatigable assistant editor, Mr. Mearns, were not the men to disregard the preReformation era of hymnody, or to slight what has been done in former ages and foreign lands. Previous treatises have been tolerably sufficient guides for those whose interest was confined to a single hymnal, like Dr. Hatfield’s Hymns of the Church or Dr. Robinson’s Laudes Domini, or to the two dozen British collections covered by Miller’s Singers and Songs ; but until now no volume or series of volumes ever attempted such a range as this work. It would require a careful specialist to point out any hymns or writers that are not included here, and then the omitted topics would usually be recent, probably American, and of very slight importance. Not only has the intention been to take in everything noteworthy, without regard to nationality, creed, or sect, but this design has been carried out thus far with amazing industry and eminent success. No labor has been spared to get light from all quarters, to shed it on remote and dubious dark places, to correct the errors of earlier investigators, and to fill up the wide and numerous gaps they left, The filling up of gaps, indeed, has been a main part of the business; but it has not interfered with the exposure of blunders and the withdrawal of misplaced credits.

For instance. “ the most complete and popular account of Latin hymn writers and their hymns ” in English up to 1889 is here (page 1526) said to be the posthumous work of S. W. Duffield, enriched by the additions of Professor R. E. Thompson. Now, Mr. Duffield laid great stress on certain discoveries of his own, especially the transference of Veni Sancte Spiritus from Robert II. of France to Hermannus Contractus of Reichenau. On page 1213 we are told that he “ altogether fails to produce anything that can be called proof in support of his assertions and conjectures,”— which indeed was apparent at the time, — and on page 1531 that “the manuscripts at St. Gall and at the British Museum were not examined by Duffield, and are much older and more important than any of those with which he was acquainted.” On page 1526 two lines are added as to the qualities which led the American student so far astray. The hymn (page 1214) “ is certainly neither by Robert II. nor by Hermannus Contractus. The most probable author is Innocent III.”

This is merely a sample. One may be vexed at having, through the peculiar construction of the book, to look up a single subject in two or three different places, but a diligent study of the indices will point the way to these; and if the matter be important (especially if it be a Latin or German text), the reader, after hunting far enough, will usually get all he wants about it, and may be sure that research has said its last word on that topic.

Mr. Julian has earned the respect of scholars by the abundant attention here bestowed on the more classical portion of his field. Not only is every important Latin hymn annotated by itself, but there are long and learned articles on Latin Hymnody (fifteen pages), Translations from the Latin, Breviaries (ten pages), Hymnaries, Sequences (twelve pages), the Te Deum (fifteen pages), and other special subjects. These are from several pens, and include lists which must be supposed to be exhaustive. The Greek material is handled with equal fullness (considering its lesser extent as known in the West), chiefly by the Rev. H. L. Bennett. The huge German field has been looked after by Mr. Mearns, to whose marvelous knowledge few native Germans could add anything, and whose minute and careful handling of his diligently accumulated and arranged stores leaves nothing to be desired. He is a Scotchman, and now a curate in Bucks. The only other hands that have been allowed to touch his chosen province are those of Dr. Schaff, in a brief survey of the whole Germanic field, and the Rev. J. T. Mueller, of Herrnhut, who supplies authoritative papers on the Bohemian Brethren and the Moravians.

For cosmopolite scholars all this is admirable. The plain Englishman or American, who takes his hymns in the vernacular, loves them for their uses and associations, and has hitherto known but a few thousand of them, may be moved to complain that here is too heavy a preponderance of foreign or ancient matter. Two or three hundred Latin and German lyrics, he will be apt to say, and some dozen from the Greek, have been rendered into our books and won a place in our hearts; for the rest of them, " What’s Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba? From his point of view, it looks as if the native English field had not received proportionate attention. He is at a loss where to look for old friends, among this multitude of strangers; and when he finds them, they — or some of them — look dwarfed, neglected, and out of countenance, as if they had been thrust aside in the crowd, and robbed of part of their due honors.

We fear this supposed charge has some foundation in the facts. Not as to the longer articles ; those on Early English Hymnody and that of the Church of England are proportionate to the Latin and German ones, and those which deal with the Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Unitarians, etc., appear sufficient. Scottish writers (apart from the paraphrasers) receive more than twelve pages from the loving and allgathering hands of Mr. Mearns, and there is a unique paper, the longest in the book, on the hymnic history of foreign missions, which are almost solely those conducted by Britons. Enough space is given to Dr. Watts, the Wesleys. Dr. Neale, and others of eminent fame, but minor writers of at least former repute and usefulness, not yet forgotten by their beneficiaries, are often coldly and narrowly handled, so that no account seems taken of their personality ; to get the facts about them, one must, in some cases, go back to Miller and other books of far less scope and accuracy tnan this. One is tempted to ask, Would they have been treated thus if they had written in German or in Latin ?

To this and other obvious criticisms there is an obvious if partial answer. The book is what it purports to be : a dictionary, not a collection of anecdotes; a history of hymns, and only incidentally of their authors, — therefore much more bibliographic than biographic ; caring greatly for texts, dates, and titles, slightly for weddings and funerals ; a vast storehouse of literary facts, with a minimum of casual comment; in intent scientific rather than popular, designed for reference, not for continuous perusal, — hence addressed to the head chiefly. The reader may draw his moral sentiments himself, and find edification in abundance elsewhere. If these traits be disappointing to some, they will gratify others, and are apart of the Dictionary plan. If the arrangement (as already hinted) be somewhat confused, irregular, and inconvenient, with its appendices and multiplied indices, one must remember that the work grew upon its builders’ hands. If the style be sometimes slovenly and awkward, the editor had too much to do to polish all his sentences, or those for which he leaves the credit to his contributors : the labor of revision was heavy, his was the directing mind, and many hundreds of articles had to be done over again. If the criticism sometimes misses the mark, as when a rival dignitary says that Dean Stanley’s “ taste and felicity of diction seem to desert him when he is writing verse,” the reader who thinks differently can make his own mental note. Both England and America are free countries, and those who find their favorite authors unjustly used here, or some topics scrappily and incompetently handled, may retain their prior opinions without blame. In short, the encyclopædist cannot always be also a stylist and an acute thinker. No human judgment is infallible, no work of man can attain perfection at all points ; certainly this one has not done it. Defective as it may be on its intellectual and literary side, it is such a treasury of information about the hymns of all lands and ages as we have not had before, and a monument of laborious zeal in collecting and tabulating minute facts in a field hitherto imperfectly tilled, and which we venture to consider in some sense a field at least appertaining to the huge farm of literature.