150 OUR HYMNS :
years ; and at his death Mr. Grigg retired from the pastorate, married the widow of Colonel Drew, a lady of considerable pro perty, and went to St. Albans. There he continued to write and preach. In 1756, some of his compositions in prose and poetry appeared in " Miscellanies on Moral and Religious Subjects, &c., published by and for Elizabeth Harrison." And, in the same year, he piiblished a Fast Sermon "On the Threatened Invasion of 1756." At the end there is a fine forcible hymn, beginning
" Shake, Britain, like an aspen shake ! " and ending
" Britons shall feel and feeling own,
God is her shield and God alone ;
And heart and voice, and life shall sing,
To God the Universal King."
Mr. Grigg also contributed twelve hymns to the " Christian s Magazine " for 1765 and 1766. And in 1765, three years before the author s death, a small anonymous tract was published with the following title : " Four Hymns on Divine Subjects, wherein the Patience and Love of our Divine Saviour is displayed." Two of these four were Nos. 509 and 622 in the " New Congregational Hymn Book," of which the latter had been written many years before. In 1806, a posthumous tract was published, entitled "Hymns by the late Rev. Joseph Grigg, Stourbridge ;" and Mr. Daniel Sedgwick has published what he believes to be a complete collection of Mr. Grigg s poetical productions. It is entitled "Hymns on Divine Subjects," &c., 1861, and consists of forty hymns, many of them founded on passages of scripture ; and seventeen short moral pieces called " Serious Poems." Most of the hymns want the special excellence of those by which Mr. Grigg is known. They do not reveal any of the personal experiences of the author. They are all poetical in form and diction, free from special faults, full of scriptural sentiment and doctrine, and here and there the author seems to be on the point of entering the higher rank of hymn writers.
Mr. Thomas Greene, of Ware, also one of our hymn-writers,
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