a sacred ode, adapted in its original design to religious services of a public character. The primary idea of the hymn was adoration; but its specific meaning and purpose have been gradually extended, till the name has come to be applied to all classes of devotional compositions treated in the shorter metrical forms. Hymns were an important feature in the religious festivals of the ancient world. The classic mythology, that wonderful product of the legends of an imaginative people, yielded rich materials for poetical treatment; and numerous specimens of the lyric ode, sung in temple and theatre amidst music and choral dances—the exulting paean, and shrill, maddening dithyramb—are preserved in Greek and Roman literature.

These ancient hymns are of three kinds—The theurgic or religious, as the so-called hymns of Orpheus, which were chanted by the initiated in the mysteries; the poetic or popular, which celebrated the fabulous adventures of gods and heroes, as the hymns of Homer and Callimachus, Pindar and Horace; and the philosophic, in which the esoteric tenets of the schools were presented under religious symbols—the homage of speculative intellect to popular belief. The hymn of Cleanthes is a lofty theosophic prayer to Zeus for light and wisdom, in the style of Milton's invocation to Urania.

But it is in the sacred poetry of the Hebrews that we find the perfect development of the hymn. In the odes of Moses and Deborah, there is a higher and purer inspiration than that of Aonian mount and Castalian spring. Daily, in the temple of Jerusalem, bands of priests and Levites with alternate voices chanted psalms in which saintly genius had been consecrated to the noblest ends. These psalms, chiefly composed by David, continued to be employed in the more spiritual worship of the Christian Church. They formed the language of its earliest praise, as they found in its faith their clear and full interpretation; and on this ancient and sacred basis has the whole superstructure of Christian hymnology been raised.

At what period hymns distinctively Christian were introduced into evangelical worship cannot be exactly ascertained. The apostolic writings speak of "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;" and the last of these expressions has been supposed to refer to the doxologies or fervent strains of thanksgiving uttered by those who possessed spiritual gifts. We learn from Philo (De Vit. Contemplat.) that hymns of their own composition were used by the Essenes or Therapeutae, a sect of Jewish ascetics, in their religious assemblies. Michaelis and others think they discover fragments of apostolic hymns in such passages as Eph. v. 14; 1 Tim. iii. 1, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11, which have a kind of rhythmical flow. We have the testimony of Pliny, in the famous letter to Trajan, early in the second century, that the Christians "repeated hymns among themselves to Christ, as to a god." An early Christian writer remarks, that "the praises of Christ, the Word of God, were set forth in psalms and hymns of the brethren, written at the beginning" (Eusebius, lib. vii. c. 28). Three ancient Greek hymns, transmitted to us in the Apostolic Constitution, are supposed by Bunsen, a competent authority, to be the sole authentic specimens we possess of the ante-Nicene psalmody and hymnology. The first of these, the Gloria in Excelsis, commonly termed the "Morning Hymn," forms part of the communion service of the Anglican Church. Another, a Hymn at the Lighting of the Evening Lamp ("Yayos rov Ayaqov), is an interesting relic of the simple devotion of the early Christian household. The first writer known to have composed hymns for the worship of the Western Church is Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, who died A.D. 368. About the same time Ambrose introduced choral singing into the church of Milan, and wrote the Te Deum—a magnificent composition, moving in the majestic cadences of the Hebrew psalm. But both hymns and choir-song had existed from a much earlier period in the Eastern Church. A specimen of the Greek hymn, the earliest known, is found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, who flourished in the beginning of the third century (Poedag. lib. iii., ad fin.). Gregory of Nazianzus, towards the end of this century, acquired reputation as a writer of hymns. The general diffusion and influence of the earlier hymns may be inferred from the fact of the heretical sects availing themselves of the popular taste in order to disseminate error. Arius wrote songs "for the sea, and the mill, and the highway, and set them to music." These rude chants materially promoted the spread of his doctrine. Chrysostom found Arian canticles in great esteem at Constantinople, and combated their tendencies by counter-hymns in defence of the Catholic doctrine. The Gnostic Bardesanes imitated the Psalms of David, not only in style and structure, but in number. He composed 150 mystical hymns; in these pseudo-psalms "presenting to simple souls," says Ephraem Syrus "the cup of poison tempered with seductive sweetness." This false coinage shows the currency of the genuine metal; and Jerome tells us that in his day "you could not go into the fields, but you might hear the ploughman at his hallelujahs, the mower at his hymns, and the vine-dresser singing David's Psalms."

In the 4th Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, the use of hymns was formally sanctioned by the Western Church. Most of the hymns for the festivals of saints and martyrs had been written at a much earlier period by Prudentius. We find some great names of the Latin Church in the list of its sacred minstrels—Pope Gelasius and Gregory, Paulinus, Venantius Fortunatus, Bernard, Anselme, Bede, &c. The famous hymn of Thomas Aquinas—Pange, lingua, gloriosi—fixes the epoch of transubstantiation, the point at which the rhetoric of the pulpits froze into the logic of the schools—

"Verbum caro, panem verum Verbo carmen efficit; Fitque sanctis Christi merum, Et si sensus deficit Ad firmandum cor sineorem Sola fides sufficit."

The great harvest of hymns was produced from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries in the Gallican and German cloisters. Many a monk employed himself, in the interval of inditing palimpsests and illuminating missals, with stringing together leonine triplets and sextains. The constant perusal of the Fathers strengthened this tendency. In the prose of Augustine we are struck by the frequent recurrence of rhythmical cadence and balanced antithesis. It was the delight of the monkish versifiers to compress hard theological formulæ into pithy epigrams, and set them to a rough jingling music. The learned Benedictines of the congregation of St Maur specially laboured in this vocation, and weeded the service-books of many puerile and barbarous ditties (vide Leysser, Polycearp. Hist. Poet. et Poem. mediæ ævi).

Some of the best Latin hymns are anonymous, as the Coelitis urbs Jerusalem, long a favourite in Scotland ("O mother dear Jerusalem"), though the original may be found in Augustine's Meditations; In abyssu Deitatis, and Veni Creator Spiritus, translated by Dryden. The Dies Irae was composed by Thomas van Celano, a Minorite friar, and the Stabat Mater is ascribed to Jacopone.

The Reformation was accompanied by an outburst of song on the part of the people throughout Christendom. The altar-screen which fenced the priestly caste from laic intrusion was broken down. Instead of canons or friars intoning drowsy anthems in the choir at the hours of prime, sext, and compline, the Reformed congregations, young men and maidens, old men and children, were heard with loud voices praising God. Translations of the Psalms prepared the way for hymns which popularized the tenets of the Evangelical Confessions, and became to the religious life of the Protestant communities what the ballads of a nation, according to Fletcher's maxim, are to its political life. In Luther's hand "the thing became a trumpet." His hymn Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott, has been called by Heine the Marseillaise of the Reformation.

In striking contrast with the number of hymns elicited by the great religious awakening on the Continent, is their comparative scarceness in the early Protestant literature of England and Scotland. We know that in both countries religious canticles were adapted to old and favourite tunes, and widely diffused, but they were never so thoroughly assimilated with the religious life of the people, and incorporated with its ritual, as in Germany. The sublime poetry of the Bible satisfied the popular heart, while it nourished the intellect and imagination; and the psalms of the Jewish temple were sung with clearer emphasis and fuller response in the Christian sanctuary. The hymnology of British Protestantism may be said to be the growth of the last century and a half, before which period Germany possessed a classic literature of sacred song. The rude English version of the Psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins was superseded by that of Brady and Tate—a sacrifice of rugged strength to insipid smoothness and inflated verbosity. Milton's attempts at translation only show that his strong arm could not bend the bow of Ulysses. The Scottish version, though in reality the work of an English Puritan, has, with all its roughness and dissonance, preserved more of the vital spirit, the rich and pure aroma of the Hebrew original.

The sacred poems of Herbert, Quarles, Vaughan, and other writers of that period, cannot be accepted in the strict sense as hymns. A few written by Mason, who died in 1694, more justly deserve the name. They are often quaint and harsh in diction, but compact with thought, and luminous with imagery. The hymns we have from Addison's pen are marked by elegance and refinement, and devoutness of feeling, though his muse stands in the outer court of the temple. Tried by the test of popularity—here a true criterion of excellence—one of the highest places must be assigned to those of Watts. He is our most voluminous writer, and though his effusions are occasionally deformed by conceits and false ornament, they are often lofty, impassioned, and felicitous in expression, while, above all, the living spirit of devotion breathes in every line. More simple and spontaneous are the hymns of Doddridge, with the same sacred warmth and glow. The numerous hymns of Charles Wesley are distinguished by the predominance of the subjective and emotional elements. Everywhere they are stamped with a fervid individuality, which verges at times upon vagueness and mysticism of the Moravian type. The hymns of Toplady, the great antagonist of the Wesleyan theology, are often charged with dogmatic statement to a degree of prosaic stiffness and austerity; but some of them, in their simple energy and fulness, and a kindling ardour which reminds us of Wesley, have obtained general currency. One of the most popular collections is that known as the Olney Hymns, the joint production of Cowper and John Newton. Newton's hymns are sound, vigorous, and sensible presentations of Christian truth, penetrated and vivified by deep Christian experience; while those of Cowper, by their tenderness and truth, their touching personal allusions, solemn saintliness, and sweet imagery, have made their way to the universal Christian heart. Two of Logan's hymns in the Scottish Paraphrases take rank with the finest in the language. Among more recent writers may be mentioned the names of Beddom, Steele, Jane Taylor, and, above all, James Montgomery, who exhibits some of the highest excellencies of a sacred lyrist. His lines on prayer are household words. The Christian Year, by Keble, may be noticed as having contributed, equally with the Tracts for the Times, to the success of the Anglo-Catholic reaction in the Church of England. In these pensive, dreamy, soothing strains, we have the logic of the Oxford schools turned into rhetoric. The academic cloister and the Gothic aisle are the "haunt and main region" of his song. The white Levitical vestment is his singing-robe, and you listen in the dim religious light to a music like the lulling chime of church-bells. The Lutheran Church may be proud of her hymnology. Those who wish to see the flexibility, compass, and affluence of the noble German speech may look for it there. Her singers have swept every string of the many-chorded lyre—sounded the full diapason from heights of aerial rapture to depths of penitential sorrow. Most of her great writers have cast their shekel into the temple-treasury. Goethe in his last days regretted having made no contribution to her sacred song; but his was the loss, not hers.

The Reformation period, and that immediately succeeding, are illustrated by the names of Luther, Justus Jonas, Nicolaus Decius, Scherberger, Schalling, Nicolai, and many others. The Thirty Years' War gave birth to the Kreuz-und Trost-Lieder, songs of trial and comfort, by men like Neumark, Albinus, Joachim Neander, Paul Fleming, and Paul Gerhardt. Her later poets have not attained to the rank of the first, though names like those of Tersteegen, Zinzendorf, Gellert, and Klopstock, have inscribed themselves indelibly on her annals. During the period when Rationalism ruled in her schools and pulpits, an attempt was made to tone down the rich evangelical colouring of the Gesangbuch to the dead neutral tint of the dominant Neology. This process of dilution was known as "Gesangbuchverwassung,"—hymn-book watering—but it did not succeed, and the sound doctrine and fervid emotion of the old hymns remained to protest against, not seldom to counteract, the petrified theology of the pulpit. Among modern writers may be mentioned the names of Novalis, Arndt, Hiller, Spitta, Knapp, &c.

The comparative poverty of the classic literature of France in hymns is striking when contrasted with its richness and fecundity in other departments. The Gallican Church continues to intone its praises in the old sacred language of the Vulgate and the Breviary—the Sanctorit of the Western ritual,—while the Reformed Church has for the most part remained faithful to its simple version of the Canonical Psalms. The first translation of the Psalms by Clément Marot in the earlier half of the sixteenth century marked an epoch in the religious history of France. The sacred words wedded to native melodies found an echo in the heart of the nation. The king hummed them as he rode to the chase. The burghers of Paris sung them in crowds in the Prés aux Clercs; and the sweet music was heard in the vineyards of Provence, and among the market-boats of the Loire and Rhône. This famous version, retouched and completed by Beza, made a way through France for the triumphal progress of the Reformed theology.

The sacred compositions of Mad. Guyon are well known to English readers through Cowper's translation. Though a member of the Roman communion, her writings are singularly free from its peculiar tone and bias. We find in them deep Christian feeling, aspiring fervour, and chastened emotion; often a sweet and tender simplicity, illumined with a pure, still fire of contemplative devotion. It is the pious, but too introverted spirit of Thomas à Kempis flowing into the poetic mould; and, as in the Imitation, the thought often shines dimly through a soft warm haze of sentiment. The keen scent of the Jesuits (odora camomilis) soon detected in these effusions the taint of Quietism—that vague suspicion which threw a shadow on the reputation even of Fenelon. In later times, the Catholic missionaries have availed themselves of the influence of vernacular hymns among the common people, and combated Protestantism with one of its own weapons. Simple rhymes or cantiques in honour of the Virgin and the saints are a distinctive feature of these missions, and hold the same place in France as the laudi spirituali in Italy.

Among hymn writers of the Reformed Church the most voluminous and best known is Cesar Malan of Geneva. To the higher qualities of the poet this writer makes no pretence, but his hymns are characterized by ardent utterance of devout feeling, and clearness of doctrinal statement, in fluent and unaffected verse. The list of her sacred lyrists, though small, includes the great name of Venet. He has written little, but left on his hymns the stamp of his powerful intellect, genial heart, and all-pervasive spirituality. After all it may be doubted whether the genius of the French language, with all its grace and pliancy, lends itself with such facility as the sister tongues of Germany and England to the grave and simple measures of the hymn. (See Bunsen's Versuch eines allgemeinen Gesang-und Gebetsbuches.) A full collection of Latin medieval hymns has been recently published at Freiburg, in Baden, by M. Mone, librarian at Carlsruhe.

HYPATIA is one of those whose names are glorified rather by wrongs than by merits; and had she not died, few would now know, and fewer care, whether she ever lived.

The facts which remain concerning her are these, as far, at least, as we can trust an age in which historians, philosophers, and priests, were equally careless of facts.

In the year A.D. 415 (or more probably 413) there was at Alexandria a maiden, beautiful, eloquent, and a great mathematician, according to the standard of those times. She seems also to have been possessed of some political genius, for Orestes, the prefect of Alexandria, did nothing without consulting her. She was the reigning star of the then Alexandrian school of Neo-Platonism, and was possibly the instructress of Syrianus, who, after the victory of the Christians, migrated to Athens, and became the spiritual father of the famous Proclus.

Proclus, then, may be considered as the ultimate development of Hypatia's teaching: what it was in itself, we know not. As an orator, she seems to have been the outcome of that school of Neo-Platonism in which, under the Emperor Julian, Maximus, Libanius, and their contemporaries, tried without effect the force of preaching as an antidote to the popular and powerful sermons of the Christians. As a commentator on the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus, she may have had leanings toward that earlier and finally victorious school, which attempted, under the teaching of Lamblichus, to discover in a priori physical science a symbolism which might express a priori spiritual truths. A similar movement among men of feminine minds arose in the seventeenth century, when Böhmen, Van Helmont, Eugenius Philalethes, and other theosophists, attempted at once to justify their mysticism (far purer and nobler than that of the Neo-Platonists) by proving its analogy with the supposed laws of the material universe, and to preserve the already decaying a priori science of the middle ages. In both cases the attempt was a sign of approaching and inevitable death to the systems of thought which it advocated, whether physical or spiritual. Doubtless there is an analogy between the physical and the spiritual worlds. The instincts of all ages and races, whether materialist or spiritualist, have assumed and acted on the postulate. It remains for some future age, if not to discover, at least to prove by experiment, that the analogy must be worked out by investigating the spiritual world, on the only method henceforward allowable in the physical one, namely, on the inductive method.

Whatsoever, therefore, Hypatia's opinions may have been, her work in the world must have been very insignificant, except in as far as a chaste and high-minded woman, however illogical, is certain to instil into her hearers something of her own purity and loftiness. To this influence of hers we should attribute the intense veneration which Synesius, bishop of Cyrene, evidently felt for her. In his most amusing letters, there are some six addressed to her. They are, for the most part stilted and artificial, as written to a person of artificial character, self-conscious herself (as were all her school), and demanding self-consciousness in others; despising simple nature, and requiring art as the token of supra-