Page:Morningeveninga00palmgoog.djvu/22

him. Of late years the original text has bееп called in question by several authors of repute, some of whom base their observations on the text last issued by the Bishop in 1709; whilst others select the first text which appeared after the Bishop's death, they believing the variations made in that text, published in 1712, were made by Ken prior to his death. The reader will find in this work both these texts of the Hymns, and therefore each one may form his own judgment as to which is the text designed to be perpetuated by the author. Ken's Poems appeared in four octavo volumes in 1721, edited by his great-nephew, William Hawkins, Esq., of the Middle Temple. The same gentleman also wrote the Memoir of the Bishop, to which were added some specimens of the Bishop's unpublished Poems: this formed one volume, octavo, and was published in 1713. Ken wrote many other Hymns besides those presented in these pages; but they have never been reprinted since they first appeared in his collected Poems one hundred and forty-two years since. Let it suffice that the three Hymns in these pages place him in the foremost rank of our English Hymn writers.