HORATIUS BONAR, " 526




PREFACE.


When the lapse of time and accumulation of fresh material suggested the
need of a new and revised edition of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth's _Story
of the Hymns_, which had been a popular text book on that subject for
nearly a generation, the publishers requested him to prepare such a
work, reviewing the whole field of hymnology and its literature down to
date. He undertook the task, but left it unfinished at his lamented
death, committing the manuscript to me in his last hours to arrange and
complete.

To do this proved a labor of considerable magnitude, since what had been
done showed evidence of the late author's failing strength, and when, in
a conference with the publishers, it was proposed to combine the two
books of Mr. Butterworth, the _Story of the Hymns_ and the _Story of the
Tunes_, in one volume, the task was doubled.

The charming popular style and story-telling gift of the well-known
compiler of these books had kept them in demand, the one for thirty and
the other for fifteen years, but later information had discounted some
of their historic and biographical matter, and, while many of the
monographs were too meagre, others were unduly long. Besides, the _Story
of the Tunes_, so far from being the counterpart of the _Story of the
Hymns_, bore no special relationship to it, only a small portion of its