Page:Morningeveninga00palmgoog.djvu/11

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INTRODUCTORY LETTER.
vii

possibly have seen, perhaps in Dodwell's hands, or at Winchester, authentic copies from some of the Bishop's own MSS., in which those readings occurred. One of them, ("All praise," instead of "Glory,") occurs once in each of the three Hymns, as given in the "Manual" of 1712; though in the "Conference," it is found in the Evening Hymn only. My own individual taste would lead me to prefer the trochee, "Glory;" but the alteration, for the sake of the adjective "All" is remarkably consistent with Bishop Ken's habit of prefixing to his letters, &c., in his later years, the words "All glory be to God;" of which examples may be found in his Pastoral of 1686, and in his letters to Archbishop Sancroft, and Bishops Burner, Hooper, and Lloyd, at pages 219, 254, 324, 362, 444, 448, 449, 459, and 460, of his Life by Mr. Anderdon. In the first volume, also, of his Poems, as published by Wyat in 1721, there is a series of twenty-four pieces on the Life and Ministry of our Lord, (most of them supposed to be recited by Apostles or Saints, while waiting for our Lord on Mount Tabor;) of which the greater number have, towards the close, an antiphonal burden in two couplets, beginning, in sixteen cases out of twenty-one, with the words, "All praise to Jesus," and, in another case, with the words, "All praise to our Great Prophet:" while, in the body of two other poems of the same series, which are without any similar burden, lines beginning "All praise to Jesus," and "All praise to God," likewise occur.

But there is a further, and to my mind stronger reason for believing, that the text of 1712 is really the result of a revision by Ken himself. It was characteristic of the Bishop, that when the language which he had used in any religious work was thought by others open to any serious cavil or misunderstanding, he would alter it, to avoid offence, and to make his meaning more clear. Thus; in the first Edition (published in 1685) of his "Practice of Divine Love," there was a passage, in which some Roman Catholic writer professed to disoover the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The Bishop at once altered it, in the Edition of 1686, saying, in the Preface "To prevent all misunderstandings for the future, he has,