THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 57
fusion and reproduction of thought which may be found in Coleridge. But if less flowing, they are more conscientious than either, and obtain a result as poetical as severe exactitude admits, being only a little short of " native music." Miss Wink- worth was familiar with the pretensions of non-Christian schools, well able to test them, and undiverted by them from her first love.
Bishop Percival, then Principal of Clifton College, wrote after her death, She was a woman of remarkable intellectual and social gifts, and very unusual attainments ; but what specially distinguished her was her combination of rare ability and great knowledge with a certain tender and sympathetic refinement which constitutes the special charm of the true womanly character. Her Lyra Gcrmanica is one of the great devotional works of the nineteenth century.
Hymn 20. O render thanks to God above. TATE and BRADY (17).
Psalm cvi., New Version. In the original the last line reads, Sing loud Amens ; praise ye the Lord.
Hymn 21. Let us with a gladsome mind.
JOHN MILTON.
Psalm cxxxvi.
Milton was born in Bread Street, London, December 9, 1608. This paraphrase, and that of Psalm cxiv., were written when Milton was a boy of fifteen attending St. Paul s School. It appeared in his Poems in English and Lai in, 16.1.5, m twenty- four stanzas of two lines, with this refrain
For His mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure.
Dr. Johnson thought Milton s versions of these two psalms worthy of the public eye ; but they raise no great expectations : they would in any numerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder. Aubrey tells us Milton was a poet at ten years old. It was at daybreak on the Christmas morning of 1626 that he conceived his great hymn on the Nativity. After five years retirement in his father s house at Horton, Milton
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