An edition of this Primer appeared in 1706, and contained a very large number of new English versions of hymns, some hundred and twenty in all. Among these it was noticed (I think, but am not certain that Mr. Orby Shipley noticed it first, while Mr. W. T. Brooke made the discovery independently) that not merely the hymn universally known as Dryden's, but the two others which Scott published under the circumstances referred to at vol. i. pp. xvi. 288, 289, and in the Additions (post), were included. It further struck these independent inquirers that many of the other hymns were extremely like these three in style-a point of the greater importance that I believe no one of them had been in any special sense a student of Dryden, and that none therefore was likely to be carried away by the wellknown desire of students to add something to the patrimony of their subject. On the other hand, when the matter was brought to my own attention, at a time when for some years I had been reading more of Dryden than of any other single English author, I could not but acknowledge either the actual presence, or a most astonishingly successful imitation, of Glorious John's hand. For a time I felt tempted to print in this volume the entire body of these hymns, as I had done in the less interesting cases of the two plays included in vol. viii. Circumstances, however, which have been partly referred to in the preface to this volume, made it desirable not to burden it with too much extra matter, and the whole of the hymns would have occupied a considerable space. Nor are they, as were the plays referred to, inaccessible. Mr. Shipley republished most of them in his Annus Sanctus (London: 1884). From his reprint I have selected here specimens, both in extenso and in extract, which include I think the most remarkable of these pieces, which will probably suffice for the present purpose, and which may be even more proper than a fuller presentation in a case where there is no contemporary or external evidence. It is indeed, I believe, the fact that there is something like a chain of tradition among English Roman Catholics to the effect that Dryden did write more hymns than have ever been publicly attributed to him. The most interesting of these traditions are monastic, and assert that exercises of the kind were assigned as penances to the greatest English convert of the Jacobite crop for the previous loose excursions of his pen. But these traditions do not appear to have been in any way connected with the Primer.

There are few or no internal difficulties in the attribution except the improbability (which it must be admitted is a somewhat grave one) that there should have been neither any contemporary claim to the assistance of such a "pre-eminent hand," nor any traditional assertion of it. That this Primer appeared

in 1706, six years after Dryden's death, is neither pro nor con. The next earlier recension of mark had been that of 1685, which was compiled while Dryden was still a member of the Church of England, and could not therefore have enjoyed the benefit of his services,

The strongest part of the argument-for which as a whole the reader, who is curious for more than is given here, may refer to the Dublin Review for October 1884, to the Saturday Review for August and September in that year, to Mr. Orby Shipley's volume, above referred to, and to the articles on "Dryden" and "Primers" in the Dictionary of Hymnology (London 1891)- centres round the "Hymn for St. John's Eve," so called by Scott.1 It seems to me, independently of the internal evidence to be presently mentioned, to make it certain that if this hymn is Dryden's, others with which it is connected are his likewise; while there are indications that whoever was the author, it was taken from the Primer. For it is not a "Hymn for St. John's Eve" at all, and St. John's Eve is not June 29. But the date June 29 does occur at the end of this hymn, or rather at the beginning of the next, that for St. Peter and St. Paul, in the Primer. Secondly, the hymn itself is the first of a set of three for the nativity of St. John, and the error arises from the fact that it is directed to be used at Even-song, the two others being for Matins and Lauds.

ON THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST, JUNE 24.

THE HYMN AT EVEN-SONG,

Ut queant laxis.

1. O sylvan prophet, whose eternal fame

Resounds from Jewry's hills and Jordan's stream,
The music of our numbers raise

And tune our voice to sing thy praise.

2. Heaven's messenger from high Olympus came
To bear the tidings of thy life and name,
And told thy sire each prodigy

That heaven designed to work in thee.

3. He heard the news, and dubious with surprise
His faltering speech in fettered accents dies:

But providence with happy choice

In thee restored thy father's voice.

1 See vol. i. p. 288. There is a considerable amount of friendly dispute among the authorities referred to, especially on bibliographical points. But this rarely affects the question of authorship.

4. From the recess of nature's inmost room

Thou knewst thy Lord unborn from womb to womb;
Whilst each glad parent told and blest
The secrets of each other's breast.

THE HYMN AT MATINS.

Antra deserti.

5. From noisy crowds your early years recess
Seeks heaven's protection in the wilderness;
And makes your innocence to shine
Unsullied with the least of sin.

6. Your courtly dress was camel's rugged hide,
With twisted thongs of stubborn leather tied :
You drank the tasteless stream, and fed
On honey, whence the locusts bred.

7. All other prophets did foretell afar
The glorious rising of a future star;
But, greater than a prophet, you

Foretold the star, and showed him too.

8. Thus God, the greatest-born of human kind,
The Baptist chose; and John alone designed
Him to baptize in Jordan's flood,
Who all the world baptized in blood.

THE HYMN AT LAUDS.

O nimis felix.

9. Hail prince of prophets, prince of martyrs hail Whom Jewry nursed in her remotest vale; Exposed without a guard or fence,

But that of milk-white innocence.

10. Three different states unequal harvest yield,
And each with blest increase adorn the field:
Thy merits all those states imply
Increased a hundred fold in thee.

11. Then, powerful patron, teach us to repent,
Make all the rocks of hardened hearts relent:
Our rough and crooked ways redress,
And cultivate our wilderness.

12. That our Redeemer, when he comes, may find
No sins, like weeds, that over-run the mind:
But like some crystal fountain clear
May know his own resemblance there.

The Matins hymn, it will be noticed, contains one of the strongest Drydenisms, that very peculiar use of "you" and "your," with stress on them, which is noticeable in Astræa Redux and the Coronation poem.

We may now with the help of Annus Sanctus (for the actual Primer is a very rare book), go through this treasure trove. I italicise throughout the key words and passages. The first hymn of those given by Mr. Shipley which strikes me as distinctly Drydenian is the version of O sola Magnarum urbium:

Let other cities strive, which most

Can of their strength or heroes boast;
Bethlem alone is chose to be
The seat of heaven-born majesty.

Here while our God incarnate lay,
The officious stars their homage pay,
A sun-like meteor quits its sphere,
To show the Sun of justice here.

Hither the faithful sages ran,

To own their king both God and man,
And with their incense, myrrh, and gold,

The mysteries of their vows unfold.

To God the censer's smoke ascends;

The gold the sovereign king attends;

In myrrh the bitter type we see

Of suffering and mortality.

Glory to thee, O Christ, whose rays,
Illustrated the Gentiles' ways;
Whilst equal praises still repeat
The Father and the Paraclete.

Here I think no one can miss the strong grasp of Dryden in the three central stanzas. "Ran" is almost a catch-word of his; while it is also worth observing that "Paraclete" seems to have been a specially favourite word of the translator, whoever he was, that it appears in the hymns already attributed to Dryden by Scott, and that it is comparatively rare in those which do not bear other touches of him. Very Drydenish again is the opening of Lucis Creator optime:

Blest Maker of the radiant light,
Who from the darksome womb of night,
Didst make the sun, at nature's birth,
To show the beauteous face of earth;
Who of the morn and evening ray,
Mad'st measured light, and call'd'st it day.
VOL. XVIII.

S

Whilst sable night involves the spheres,
Vouchsafe to hear our vocal tears,
Lest our frail mind on creatures bent,
Should hug its chain and banishment;
And while it thus supinely lies,

Forget to use its wings and rise.

While about Coeli Deus sanctissime I myself feel as little doubt as is possible in a matter resting almost wholly on internal evidence:

O Source of light, whose glorious ray,
Improves the fiery noon of day,
And paints the lucid realms more bright,
With beauteous gleams of burnished light,
Who round the world, twice two days old,
The burning luminary rolled;

And taught the moon and stars to steer
Their roving course around the sphere.
That certain powers thus might show,
How time's alternate seasons flow,

How days and nights and months succeed,
And years supply each other's stead.
Restore in us thy heavenly day,

And drive the night of sin away;

That man, like them, from darkness free,

May end this course and rest in thee.

In this, most gracious Father, hear,

Through Christ, thine equal Son, our prayer
Who with the Holy Ghost and thee

Resides and reigns eternally.

Nor is Eterne Rex altissime much less recognisable :

O Saviour Christ, O God most high,
Whose glorious triumph decks the sky,
Arising from the world's defeat,
With tyrant-death beneath your feet;

Called from above you as your own
In right of God resume the throne;
And thence this universe survey,
Whilst all your creatures homage pay.

Both heaven and earth, nay death and hell,
And all that in their confines dwell,

With bended knees fall down before

The general Victor and adore.

The angels stand amazed to see

Such change in our mortality;

That human flesh, the root of sin,

Should serve their God to triumph in.