Page:Our Hymns.djvu/98

 78 OUR HYMXS :

Pope, in a more Christian strain, speaks definitely of heaven, and concludes with the Scripture questions of defiant confidence

&quot; grave, where is thy victory ? O death, where is thy sting ? &quot;

In a letter written at the time, the author acknowledges his indebtedness to his classic predecessors. He says : &quot; You have it, as Cowley calls it, just warm from the brain ; it came to me the first moment I waked this morning. Yet you ll see it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but also the fine fragment of Sappho.&quot;

From Pope s correspondence we learn that on Nov. 7, 1712, he sent a letter to Mr. Steele for insertion in the &quot; Spectator on the subject of Adrian s last words. This letter contained a translation in two four-line verses of those words. The ver begin :

&quot; All fleeting Spirit ! wandering fire, &quot; &c.

They are very inferior to the piece, &quot; Vital Spark,&quot; &c., but con tain the germ of it. On December 4 of the same year, Steele wrote to Pope asking him to make of those words an ode in two or three stanzas for music. He replied immediately, saying that he had done as required, and sent the piece, &quot;Vital Spark,&quot; &c., as the result.

ISAAC WATTS.

16741748.

THIS most popular of English hymn-writers was the son of a respectable schoolmaster at Southampton, and the eldest of eight children. He was born July 17, 1674. His parents were emi nently pious, and suffered much in the persecution during Charles II. s reign, his father being more than once imprisoned for his nonconformity. In a pocket book MSS., headed &quot; Memo rable Affairs in my Life,&quot; there is this note : &quot; 1683, My

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