[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Surely Lady Glenconner is mistaken. The first two stanzas she quotes of " Jeremy Taylor's evening hymn " are from Bishop Ken's well-known evening hymn. As she writes them they are expanded from the eight-syllable lines of the original to a ten-syllable line by the insertion of epithets and other expletives ("dearest," " many," " then with," &e.), and her second verse is made up of the first two lines of the Bishop's third and the last two lines of his first.—I am, Sir, &c., W. H. A.. Cowsia. St. Edward's School, Oxford.
[We have received many letters on this subject. The hymn in its most familiar form is in all hymn-books, and was of course written by Bishop Ken. Apparently other versions and adapta- tions were made, and it was probably from one of these that Lady Glenconner quoted. It is also possible that Ken worked upon some one else's hymn and re-created it. Sir Thomas Browne and Fiatman have both been suggested as the originators. We can find no evidence, however, that any • such hymn was written by Jeremy Taylor, whose hymns were rather in the nature of odes.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
