I/oo] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 1 83 



Bev. Dr. Smith to Rev. Dr. White. 



March 17th, 17S6. 



Dear Sir: Yours of the 15th does not require a long answer. I have 

 hastily, since my last, run over the metre psalms; but except some cor- 

 rections in the punctuation, which I think might be made to advantage 

 in sundry passages, I see little that needs alteration ; and even these are 

 too insignificant, to require a table of Ei-rata. A candid reader will 

 easily see they are but little oversights, and I have seen no impression 

 of the psalms or indeed of the Prayer Book in general, more free from 

 typographical errors, for which we are indebted to your indefatigable 

 attention to the sheets, joined I am persuaded to some considerable 

 care and attention in Messrs. Hall and Sellers. 



In the hymns enclosed to me in your last are a few lines I could have 

 wished to amend, but hope they are now printed off, and so they must 

 stand as they are at present. You objected in your letter of February 

 ist upon receiving the copies of the hymns, to a line in the 4th hymn 

 (viz., for Good Friday), '■^Well 7nay the sun as hell be black,' ^ also in 

 your letter of February i6th you objected to the expression, "Spoil of 

 armies once their dread,'''' in the 2d Hymn for the Ascension, being 

 Hymn X. I thought both your objections well grounded, and readily 

 proposed substitutes; the last of which on Ascension Day (as I wrote 

 you) I considered as a great improvement; but as I had not kept copies 

 of the original hymns which I transmitted to you, I made the altera- 

 tions or substitutions, from what my memory retained of them and in 

 both cases changed the person, viz., putting the second person for the 

 third; instead of 



" Tliou sun as darkest night be black," 



It should be '■'■The sun, etc.,''' and perhaps "deepest night'" for "darkest 

 night. ' ' 



Again in Hymn X, the second for the Ascension, in stanzas 5 and 6, . 

 the second person should be everywhere changed into the third person, 

 not only on account of the rhyme in the 5th stanza, as " Thou " does not 

 rhyme to "captivity," but also on account of the sense and beauty of 

 connection, which, as I said before, I could not so well perceive in 

 offering the amendment from memory. The hymn is in double rhymes, 

 and the two stanzas, viz., 5th and 6th, should run thus: 



5 Ascending high, in triumph, He 



Hath gifts receiv'd for sinful men ; 

 And captive led captivity, 



That God may dwell on earth again. 



6 Ev'n Rebels shall partake His grace 



And humble proselytes repair, 

 To worship at His dwelling-place, 

 And all the world pay homage there. 



