Many of the earlier pieces assigned to this hymn were either too noisy or too tame. The best and longest-serving is "Lanesboro," which, with its expressive duet in the middle and its soaring final strain of harmony, never fails to carry the meaning of the words. It was composed by William Dixon, and arranged and adapted by Lowell Mason. William Dixon, an English composer, was a music engraver and publisher, and author also of several glees and anthems. He was born 1750, and died about 1825. Lowell Mason, born in Medfield, Mass., 1792, has been called, not without reason, "the father of American choir singing." Returning from Savannah, Ga., where he spent sixteen years of his younger life as clerk in a bank, he located in Boston (1827), being already known there as the composer of "The Missionary Hymn." He had not neglected his musical studies while living in the South, and it was in Savannah that he made the glorious harmony of that tune. He became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, went abroad for special study, was made Doctor of Music, and collected a store of themes among the great models of song to bring home for his future work. The Boston Academy of Music was founded by him and what he did for the song-service of the Church in America by his singing schools, and musical conventions, and published manuals, to form and organize the choral branch of divine worship, has no parallel, unless it is Noah Webster's service to the English language. Dr. Mason died in Orange, N.J., in 1872. "SWEET IS THE WORK, MY GOD, MY KING." This is one of the hymns that helped to give its author the title of "The Seraphic Watts." Sweet is the work, my God, my King To praise Thy name, give thanks and sing To show Thy love by morning light, And talk of all Thy truth at night. _THE TUNE._ No nobler one, and more akin in spirit to the hymn, can be found than "Duke Street," Hatton's imperishable choral. Little is known of the John Hatton who wrote "Duke St." He was earlier by nearly a century than John Liphot Hatton of Liverpool (born in 1809), who wrote the opera of "Pascal Bruno," the cantata of "Robin Hood" and the sacred drama of "Hezekiah." The biographical index of the _Evangelical Hymnal_ says of John Hatton, the author of "Duke St.": "John, of Warrington; afterwards of St. Helens, then resident in Duke St. in the township of Windle; composed several hymn-tunes; died in 1793.[5] His funeral sermon was preached at the Presbyterian Chapel, St. Helens, Dec. 13." [Footnote 5: Tradition says he was killed by being thrown from a stage-coach.] "COME, WE THAT LOVE THE LORD." Watts entitled this hymn "Heavenly Joy on Earth." He could possibly, like Madame Guyon, have written such a hymn in a dungeon, but it is no less spiritual for its birth (as tradition will have it) amid the lovely scenery of Southampton where he could find in nature "glory begun below."