From Sternhold and Hopkins to the modern hymn-book is a long and delightful journey. ‘I envy not in any mood’ the man who finds in devotional poetry only matter for criticism. If it be true that the heart makes the theologian, it is more true that the heart makes the hymnologist. The earlier stages of our study may yield little actual fruit in the shape of hymns which a modern editor would delight to add to his hymn-book. But it yields much in the way of inspiration, bringing us into communion with men like Herbert, Donne, Sandys, Vaughan, and, in his measure, Wither—men who might have lived the courtier’s life had they not chosen to serve the King of kings. So far as their poems are concerned, it is a mere accident that Herbert and Donne were in orders. They are not clerical hymn-writers, but, like others of their school, are poets of the inner and individual life. They touch our hearts, not because they have written what expresses the common need of a congregation, but because they speak in graceful form what most of us can feel but could never put into words. Campion and the two Austins represent the devout laymen of the professional class—men who might, if they pleased, have been mere men of the world. It would be quite possible to discuss English hymns with scarce a mention of such names, but, it seems to me, that in losing them our study would lose its richest charm. Ken may be considered the first of the Anglican, Mason of the Evangelical, and Watts of the Dissenting hymn-writers. They wrote, not simply for their own delight or relief, but for the sake of others. Ken had no immediate successors, though he is the founder of the school of Heber, Lyte, Keble, and Ellerton. Mason’s immediate successors were Shepherd, Newton, and Cowper; Watts was the first of a long succession of the later Puritans.