"True judgment suggested to him that what he drew from Scripture was
best preserved in a pure and simple expression, and the fervour of his
piety made that simplicity pathetic."
No doubt seems to have crossed the Bishop's mind as to the authorship.
Sometimes Addison thought fit to throw a little mystery over these hymns.
In _Spectator_, No. 489., after alluding to Psalm cvii. v. 23., "They that
go down to the sea," &c. (which Addison says gives a description of a ship
in a storm, preferable to any other that he has met with), he subjoins his
"divine Ode made by a _Gentleman_ on the conclusion of his travels," "How
are Thy servants blest," &c.
The verses 4 to 8 are said to refer to the storm which Allison himself
encountered on the Mediterranean, after he embarked at Marseilles in 1700.
The hymn "When rising from the bed of death," _Spectator_, No. 513, "a
thought in sickness," is contained in a supposed letter from a _Clergyman_,
viz. one of the club, "who assist me in my speculations."
Tickell, in his exquisite elegy, so worthy of its subject, when asking,
"What new employments please the unbody'd mind?"
adds,
"Or mixed with milder cherubim to glow,
In _hymns of love, not ill essayed below_."
Were not the very hymns which we are speaking of in Tickell's mind?
Addison's piety, we may well gather from his writings, was, as Mr. Macaulay
observes, of a cheerful character. The feeling which predominates in all
his devotional papers, is that of gratitude; do we not find it also
strikingly developed in his hymns? We all remember the beautiful lines,
"Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ,
Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy."
Let Bishop Ken and Addison retain their divine hymns--dear as they are, and
let us hope ever will be, to man, woman, and child--whilst the English
language is read or spoken. How greatly is their sublimity heightened, and
their beauty enhanced, when we associate with them the purity of character
and the assemblage of virtues which distinguished their excellent authors!