Awake, and sing the song

Awake, and sing the song. William Hammond* (1719-1783). From Hammond’s Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs (1745), where it had 14 stanzas. It was entitled ‘Before singing of Hymns, by Way of Introduction’. The 14 stanzas were shortened and altered by successive 18th-century editors, including George Whitefield*, Martin Madan* and Augustus Montague Toplady* and further revised by William John Hall* and Edward Osler* for the ‘Mitre’ hymn book, Psalms and Hymns adapted to the Services of the Church of England (1836), and by the editors for Church Hymns of 1871 (for full details of the textual alterations see JJ, pp.100-101). A complete text is in Lyra Britannica (1867), edited by Charles...