DISSENTING PRAISE
Religious dissent & the hymn in England & Wales
Edited by Isabel Rivers & David L. Wykes. Oxford University Press. 320 pages. £65.00
ISBN 978 0 199 545 247
I spotted this title in the review columns of a national broadsheet and borrowed it from the British Library. I have loved hymns since my Sunday school days in south London. Having read it, I now have to ‘sell my shirt’ and get my own copy.
The book contains nine chapters drawing on the rich resources of Dr. Williams’s Library in London which holds treasures from the Puritan and Dissenting periods. I dare not embark on a detailed assessment, but, for space’s sake, just confine myself to an overview. It is my opinion that any of the following chapters would each be worth the money.
Here we go: Hymns, Psalms and Controversy in the 17th century; the Hymns of Isaac Watts and the Tradition of Dissent; the Circulation and Reception of Philip Doddridge’s Hymns; John Rippon and Baptist Hymnody; Josiah Conder in Context; W. Garrett Horder and Congregational Hymnody; James Martineau and the Evolution of Unitarian Hymnody; the Music of Dissent; and, finally, the Evolution of the Welsh Hymns.
As ever, the book is a rich reference work for those who want to branch out or pursue veins of gold. For example, I had missed Theory and Theology in George Herbert’s Poetry (1997) by Elizabeth Clarke. Did you know, incidentally, that the famed Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology is coming out in a new version under the editorship of J.R. Watson, Emeritus Professor of English at Durham University?
As Charles Wesley sang, ‘Where shall my wandering soul begin?’
