Book of Common Song. Edited by the Rev. Andrew Charles
Murphy. (Marcus Ward and Co.)—Dr. Murphy sends forth this hymnal as a candidate for favour. It has been his aim, he says, "to confine himself to the choice of hymns which were marked at once by devotional fervour and artistic excellence." It is very difficult to say how far this has been accomplished. In nothing is it more true than in religious poetry, guot homines, tot sententice. A rough test is supplied by Mr. James King's "Anglican Hymnology." (Dr. Murphy is not, we think, an Anglican Minister, so can only be quite generally affected by the test.) This is, to mark as "first-rank hymns" all that have been admitted into thirty hymnals and more, as second rank all that are found in from twenty to thirty, and as third rank all that have been admitted into fifteen. In the Book of Common Song there are three hundred ; forty-two of Mr. King's "first rank" hymns are omitted, whereas the "Hymnal Companion" omits two only, and "Hymns, Ancient and Modern," fifteen. Of the thirty hymns which have not found their way into collections from their being of recent com- position, but to which Mr. King gives the title of "Hymns of the Future," so likely are they to gain acceptance, Mr. Murphy includes thirteen only.
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