ythm it is this, that the common mind likes common rhythms, such
as the march or waltz, whereas elaboration of rhythm appeals to a
trained mind or artistic faculty. I should say that the popularity of
common rhythms is due to the shortness of human life, and that if men
were to live to be 300 years old they would weary of the sort of music
which Robert Browning describes so well--

'There 's no keeping one's haunches still,
There 's no such pleasure in life.'

But hymn-melodies must not be put on that level. It is desirable to
have in church something different from what goes on outside, and (as I
say in the text) a hymn-tune need not appeal to the lowest
understanding on first hearing. The simple free rhythms, too, are
perfectly natural; they were free-born.

[14]I need only instance Orlando Gibbons' tune called 'Angels.' The
original is a most ingenious combination of rhythms; and its masterly
beauty could not be guessed from the inane form into which it is
degraded in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, No. 8.

[15]I omit, for want of space, mention of the late Plain-song melodies
(which would give a good many excellent tunes); and, for want of
knowledge, the Italian tunes.

[16]Comparing the English with the French Genevan Psalter, I do not think
my judgement is too severe on our own. It had a few fine tunes original
to it; best of all the cxxxvii (degraded in _Hymns Ancient and
Modern_). This is of such exceptional beauty that I believe it must
have been written by Bourgeois for Whittingham. Next perhaps is lxxvii
(called 81st in _H. A. M._), the original of which, in Day, 1566, is a
fine tune, degraded already in Este, 1592, which version _H. A. M._
follows: it is said to have come from Geneva. Besides these, xxv and
xliv, which are the only other tunes from this source in _H. A. M._,
are very favourable examples, and I do not think that they will rescue
the book. Nor can I believe that these old English D.C.M. tunes were
ever much used. They are too much alike for many of them to have been
committed to memory, while all the editions which I happen to have seen
are full of misprints, and the four-line tunes which drove them out
were early in the field, and increased rapidly.

[17]When one turns the pages of that most depressing of all books ever
compiled by the groaning creature, Julian's hymn-dictionary, and sees
the thousands of carefully tabula