The doctrine that when you have good news you should
share it is as old as the apostolic age. It is certainly very good news indeed that Mr. George Sampson's British Academy lecture on " The Century of Divine Songs," hitherto only available in pamphlet form (and in not very many copies of that), is included in a volume containing seven essays by Mr. Sampson, just published by the Cambridge University Press at tor. 6d. Mr. Sampson can be as downright as Dr. Johnson and, though he is no Methodist, does not hesitate to write: " I here proclaim my firm belief that John Wesley was the greatest Englishman of the eighteenth century." Having in mind one or two possible rivals, like the two Pitts and Charles James Fox, I reserve judgment on that, but I here proclaim my firm belief that George Sampson has written as good an essay on hymns as was ever written. The eighteenth century's output of great hymns—from the pens 'of Addison, Watts, the two Wesleys, Cowper, John Newton and others was prodigious, Charles Wesley with his 6,000 utterly dwarfing all others quantitatively. In recent years Mr. Betts has written on the hymns of Methodism, and Bernard Manning of Cambridge dealt with the subject more widely, but for erudition, understanding and general distinction and treatment, I would put Mr. Sampson before either. No one reading him can fail to want to go exploring on his own account.
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