Francis T. Palgrave 
Treasury of Sacred Song Selected From the English Lyrical Poetry of Four Centuries [PDF ebook] 
With Notes Explanatory and Biographical

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Longer explanatory remarks have been reserved for the final notes: in which, also, (supported by the example of Archbishop Trench in his excellent Household Book of English have added a few indications of peculiar poetical merit. To separate a poet’s serious work from his personality, as Goethe once remarked, is simply impossible. The brief biographies inserted, (which exclude our well-known master-singers, and those still living), will, therefore, it is hoped, satisfy, in a fair degree, the natural desire for some acquaintance with the lives of those whose best and deepest thoughts are here before us. Even when only a few bare facts have been recorded or noticed, they can hardly fail to throw over the verse some light and interest. But greater space has been given to those writers whose public career or personal modes of thought, (in particular when remote from present fashions), have given a special colour to their poetry. A chronological arrangement, – so far as chronology is possible, here the actual dates of composition are rarely known, – has been generally kept in view. But poems of cognate character, whether in style or in thought, have been often grouped together.