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 tabulated English hymns, by far the greater number of them not only pitiable as efforts of human intelligence, but absolutely worthless as vocal material for melodic treatment, one wishes that all this effort had been directed to supply a real want. E. g. the two Wesleys between them wrote thirteen octavo volumes, of some 400 pages each, full of closely printed hymns. One must wish that Charles Wesley at least (who showed in a few instances how well he could do) had, instead of reeling off all this stuff, concentrated his efforts to produce only what should be worthy of his talents and useful to posterity. [18]If old tunes are modernized out of a fine rhythm, a curious result would be likely to come about; viz. that modern tunes might be written in the old rhythm for the sake of novelty, while the old were being sung in the more modern way for the sake of uniformity.