Behold yon newborn Infant grieved. J. Merrick, [Ignorance of Man.] First published in his Poems on Sacred Subjects, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 4to., 1763, pp. 25-27, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines. It was also included in full by Montgomery in his Christian Psalmist, 1825, No. 333. In its full form it has not come into common use; but centos therefrom are given in numerous collections both in Great Britain and America. These are:—
1. "Author of good, to thee I turn [come]." This cento is composed of stanzas v.-viii., somewhat altered in Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833, No. 157, and from thence has passed into several modern collections. In Dr. Kennedy's Hymnologia Christiana, 1863, No. 1410, these stanzas are repeated as "Author of good, to Thee we turn," and thereto 8 lines have been added, probably by Dr. Kennedy.
2. "Author of good, we rest on Thee." This is a slightly altered form of the former cento, which is found in several American Unitarian collections.
3. "Eternal God, we look to Thee." This is an altered form of stanzas v., vi., and viii. It was included in the Leeds Hymn Book, 1853, No. 580, and is repeated in the New Congregational Hymn Book, 1859, and other collections.
Taken in its various forms, very few of Merrick's compositions have attained to an equal position in popular favour.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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