Contents
| « Prev | Archaisms in the Hymns | Next » |
III
ARCHAISMS IN THE HYMNS
The style of Wesley's hymns is distinctly the most modern poetical style of the period. There are, however, a few archaisms, all of which are dealt with, we believe, in the following notes. 120 In the examples from the hymns, the numbers given are those of the Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780).
1. WORDS USED WITH AN OBSOLETE PRONUNCIATION.
ÁCCEPTABLE
| Thou our sacrifice receive, |
The older pronunciation, as in Milton:
| Thy perfect gift, so good, So fit, so acceptable, so divine.2727(Paradise Lost, X., 139.) |
CÉMENTED
| Cemented by love divine, |
The older pronunciation, as in Shakespeare:
| The fear of us May cement their divisions, and bind up |
But this pronunciation was already giving way before Wesley's time. Witness the lines of Swift, in the City Shower (1710):
| Sole coat! where dust cemented by the rain, Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain! |
CÓNFESSOR
| His friends and confessors to own, |
This is the historical pronunciation, which did not give way until the beginning of the nineteenth century. After this, for a while, both pronunciations were current, and there was an attempt to distinguish the two senses of the word by the differing accents--cónfessor, one who witnesses for religion in the face of danger--the meaning of the word in the hymn--conféssor one who makes or receives confession of a fault.
But Wesley's pronunciation was universal up to his time, and for years after. So in Dryden (using the word in the second sense):
| For sundry years before did he complain, And told his ghostly confessor his pain.3131(Hind and Panther, III., 210.) |
OBDÚRATE
| Give the sweet relenting grace, |
The older pronunciation, as always in Shakespeare and Milton:
| His baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.3333(Paradise Lost, I., 58.) |
SÚCCESSOR
| Where shall I wander now to find, The successors they left behind? |
The older pronunciation as in Dryden:
| I here declare you rightful successor, |
2. WORDS USED IN AN OBSOLETE SENSE.
PREVENT
| He prevents His creatures' call, |
This, of course, is the old and primary sense of the word, as in the collect:
Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with Thy most gracious favor.
And in Izaak Walton, who records that be rose early to go fishing, ‘preventing the sunrise.’
PROPRIETY
| Whate'er I have was freely given; Nothing but sin I call my own: Other propriety disclaim. |
This is the Latin sense of the word--what we 123 mean now by ‘property, proprietorship.’ So, in Milton:
| Hail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else!3737(Paradise Lost, IV., 750.) |
RESENT
| My inmost bowels shalt resent |
When the word was first introduced into the language, in the seventeenth century, it simply meant, as the French ressentir still does, to feel--‘to have a sense or feeling of that which had been done to us, but whether a sense of gratitude for tbe good, or of enmity for the evil, the word said nothing’ (Trench, Select Glossary, p. 186). It was only gradually that the sense of the word was narrowed to express angry feeling alone.
The earlier and wider significance of the word (as in the hymn) is seen in these examples:
It was mighty well resented and approved of. 3939(Pepys' Diary, 13th February, 1669.)
| 'Tis by my touch alone that you resent What objects yield delight, what discontent.4040(Beaumont, Psyche IV., 156.) |
UNITARIAN
| The Unitarian fiend expel, |
Remarks have often been ignorantly made on the bitter intolerance of these lines, which many have understood as referring to the teaching of those whom we now call Unitarians. The fact is, of course, that they refer solely to Mahometanism. The hymn is headed, in the Collection of 1780, ‘For the Mahometans’ (in the pamphlet in which it was originally published, ‘For the Turks’), and it is full of specific allusions to Mahomet, ‘That Arab-thief, as Satan bold, Who quite destroyed Thine Asian fold.’ The use of of Unitarian in reference to Moslem doctrine is quite correct, and, in the eighteenth century, was quite common. Gibbon, in describing the rise of Islam, refers again and again to the march of the Unitarian armies, the advance of the Unitarian banners. Those Christians who deny the Divinity of Christ were always called Socinians in Wesley's time; it was only at the end of the eighteenth century that they began to be generally called Unitarians. Indeed the next hymn but one to this in the Hymns of Intercession for all Mankind (1758), is entitled ‘For the Arians, Socinians, Deists, Pelagians, &c.’
3. OBSOLETE GRAMMATICAL USAGE.
There is one grammatical archaism which frequently recurs in the hymns--the use of the Preterite for the Passive Participle, as in
125| The Sun of Righteousness on me |
| Holiness unto the Lord, |
and innumerable other examples.
Wesley, in his Short English Grammar, published in 1748, gives ‘rose’ and ‘strove’ as being both the Imperfect and the Passive Participle of ‘rise’ and ‘strive.’ He gives ‘writ’ or ‘wrote’ as the Imperfect, and ‘written’ as the Participle of ‘write.’
In the Gentleman's Magazine of 1758 there is a witty poem by Dr. Byrom, The Passive Participle's Petition:
| Till just of late, good English has thought fit To call me written, or to call me writ: But what is writ or written, by the vote Of writers now, hereafter must be wrote, And what is spoken, too, hereafter spoke, And measures never to be broken, broke. |
| I never could be driven, but in spite Of Grammar, they have drove me from my right. None could have risen, to become my foes: But what a world of enemies have rose! Who have not gone, but they have went about, And, torn as I have been, have tore me out. |
The poem, which was probably suggested by The Humble Petition of Who and Which, in the Spectator, ends with the appeal:
| Let all The learned take some better heed, And leave the vulgar to confound the due Of preter sense, and participle too. |
Dr. Lowth also protested against this usage, and declared: ‘This abuse has been long growing upon us, and is continually making further encroachments.’ On the other hand, Home Tooke, in the Diversions of Pitney (1786), maintained that it was not a growing usage, but one which had greatly decreased; that it was not an innovation, but ‘the idiom of the language’; and that examples of it might be given ‘from every writer in the English tongue.’ The pioneer of English philology was right. Byrom was mistaken in thinking the usage of recent introduction. It occurs more or less in all English writers until the middle of the eighteenth century. So Shakespeare, where Queen Katherine says in Henry VIII (ii. 4,30)
| Or which of your friends Have I not strove to love, although I knew He were mine enemy? |
and where Edmund says in King Lear (i. 2, 93):
I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath wrote this to feel my affection to your honor.
And often in Dryden:
| I made a sacred and a solemn vow To offer up the prisoners that were took.4444Indian Queen, II., 1. |
Nevertheless, we have a strong impression that the practice of using the Preterite instead of the Participle was commoner in the early eighteenth century than it had ever been before, 127 and we would suggest that this was because the age had become sensitive to the confusion, and was endeavoring to reach a consistent usage--either by making the Preterite regularly serve instead of the Participle, as the Wesleys did, or by distinguishing regularly between them--the usage which finally prevailed. Lowth and Byrom felt that the use of the Preterite for the Participle was becoming more common, as in some writers it probably was, through an effort after consistency, and they concluded that it was a new abuse, which it was not.
And, finally, there is the use of ‘rent’ for ‘rend’:
| My stony heart Thy voice shall rent, |
John Wesley, in his Short English Grammar, gives ‘rend’ as the Present Tense, and ‘rent’ as the Imperfect; but Charles Wesley, in the hymns, consistently used ‘rent’ as the Present Tense of the verb. There is warrant for it in earlier writers, as in Shakespeare:
| And will yon rent our ancient love asunder To join with men in scorning your poor friend?4646(Midsummer Night's Dream, iii., 2, 215.) |
And in George Herbert:
| Better by worms be all once spent, Than to have hellish moths still gnaw and fret |
‘Rent’ as the Present Tense occurred in several passages of the Authorized Version of the Bible, but it has been altered in later editions in every case but one (Jer. 4:30).
‘Rend’ and ‘rent’ would appear to have been used indifferently for the Present Tense--as they are in Shakespeare--until nearly Wesley's time.
| « Prev | Archaisms in the Hymns | Next » |