[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Slit,—I was most disappointed
to see that Mr. Lionel James had made what was almost a recantation of his previous letter, " Hymns Ancient and Early-Victorian." His criticism,' telling though it was, -did not go far enough. 'How far it should have gone I cannot tell ; certain it is that it could not have gone too far.
There is another graveyard of verse, inflicted for the most part on defenceless schoolboys, and called in a delightfully hopeful way Songs Of Prizise whose atrocities I would like to set before your readers.. ` Hymn number 416 of that publication of torment . states that " God is good' and thereffire King." The - logic seems
doubtful in the extreine and -the - singer is not encouraged
by the next verse : • • •
kin& Of knowle.dge and of law, TO-the glciriotis'eirete draW ; Those to whom the arta belong, Add. their. voices to the song. . All who work and all who wait, Sing, ' The Linil is good and great.' "
The writer must have had a mind like a village pageant.
And so it goes on through the whole hook. - Most _of the things seem to be translations of mediaeval Latin doggerels. Some of them seem to be transliterations. The entire whole is just the " spiritual food " that the- ordinary boy requires to be driven into atheism or communism or any of the other cheerful " isms " against which he is continually warned from•
the pulpit.—Yours faithfully, DAVID BROWN
. (pupil of the address below). Trent College, Derbyshire.
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