Anonymous Contributor to A Pocket Hymn Book
Biography
Watts’s original 1719 Psalm 117 paraphrase consisted of two long-meter stanzas. A later anonymous expansion appeared in “A Pocket Hymn Book designed as a constant Companion for the pious,” printed at York by Robert Spence around 1780. John Wesley subsequently reprinted this expanded form in his own “Pocket Hymn Book” of 1786, but the added material should not therefore be treated as securely authored by Wesley.
Modern hymnals sometimes incorporate only part of this anonymous expansion between Watts’s two original stanzas. As a result, versions of “From All That Dwell Below the Skies” may contain a mixture of Watts’s 1719 text and later eighteenth-century material. The anonymous contributor’s identity has not been established.
Modern hymnals sometimes incorporate only part of this anonymous expansion between Watts’s two original stanzas. As a result, versions of “From All That Dwell Below the Skies” may contain a mixture of Watts’s 1719 text and later eighteenth-century material. The anonymous contributor’s identity has not been established.
Hymns by Anonymous Contributor to A Pocket Hymn Book
From All That Dwell Below the Skies
Role: Lyricist