"ABIDE WITH ME."
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sps,—So many beautiful sentiments have gathered round this hymn that it is well that the true date and circumstances of its composition should be accurately known. All those touching incidents just before Lyte's death, which have been recorded lately in the Press, have no bearing upon the date when the poem was written ; they tell us only the time when he plaeed. it in the hands of his relatives. Lyte died in 1847.
He wrote" Abide with Me " in 1820. In that year Lyte, as a young clergyman, was staying with the Hores at Pole Hore, near Wexford. He went to see an old friend, William Augustus Le Hunte, who lay dying and who kept repeating the phrase, "Abide with Me." After leaving the bedside Lyte wrote the hymn and gave a copy of it to Sir Francis Le Hunte, William Augustus Le Hunte's brother, amongst whose papers it remained when they passed to his nephew, the Rev. Francis Le Hunte. No -doubt when Lyte felt his own end approaching his mind reverted to the lines he had written so many years before, and then it was that they became first publicly known.
.. These,- details were given_ to., me _some :yens, ago..by Sir George Ruthven Le Hunte, grandson of William Augustus, • and I have recently had them confirmed by members of his
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