George Horne

Short Name: George Horne
Full Name: Horne, George, 1730-1792
Birth Year: 1730
Death Year: 1792

Home, George, D.D., born at Otham, near Maidstone, Kent, Nov. 1, 1730, and educated at Maidstone, and University College, Oxford (B.A. 1749). He subsequently became a Fellow, and in 1768 Master of Magdalen College. He was also Vice-Chancellor of his University, 1776; Dean of Canterbury, 1781, and Bishop of Norwich, 1791. He died Jan. 17, 1792. Bp. Home is widely known through his Commentary on the Book of Psalms. His hymns were included in his Memoirs by the Rev. W. Jones, 1795: again, in his Essays and Thoughts on Various Subjects with Hymns and Poems, 1808: and again, in his Works, 1809.

Of his Hymns the best known is:β€”
See the leaves around us falling [Autumn], which appeared in his Memoirs, 1795, pp. 223-4, in 10 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled "The Leaf. 'We all do fade as a leaf.' Isa. lxiv. 6." It is also found in his Essays, 1808, and Works, 1809. Collyer included it in an abbreviated form in his Collection, 1812, from whence it passed into modern Nonconformist hymnals. It was brought into use in the Church of England by Cotterill through his Selection, 8th ed., 1819.
Bishop Home's translation of the Latin Grace, β€œTe Deum patrem colimus" (q.v.):β€” "Thee, Mighty Father, we adore," has been strangely overlooked by hymnal compilers.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology


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