What tho' my frail eyelids refuse. A. M. Toplady. [At Night.] Published in the Gospel Magazine, Dec. 1774, in 6 stanzas of 8 lines, entitled "A Chamber Hymn," and signed "Minimus." Also in Sedgwick's reprint of Toplady's Hymns, &c, 1860. It was given in its original form in several of the older hymnbooks, but in Collyer's Collection, 1812, it was divided into two parts, Pt. i. being composed of stanzas i.-iii., and Pt. ii., beginning, "Inspirer and Hearer of prayer," of stanzas iv.-vi. From that date the first part fell gradually out of use, whilst the second part rose to great popularity, and has been rendered into several languages. The translation into Latin by R. Bingham in his Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, begins, "O Tu precum inspirator."
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Toplady, Augustus Montague, the author of "Rock of Ages," was born at Farnham, Surrey, November 4, 1740. His father was an officer in the British army. His mother was a woman of remarkable piety. He prepared for the university at Westminster School, and subsequently was graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. While on a visit in Ireland in his sixteenth year he was awakened and converted at a service held in a barn in Codymain. The text was Ephesians ii. 13: "But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." The preacher was an illiterate but warm-hearted layman named Morris. Concerning this experience Toplady wrote: "Strange that I, who had so long sat under the means of grace in England, should b… Go to person page >
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