much that reminds of stage action, to be pleasing. He also rendered into verse part of the Sermon on the Mount, an attempt which could hardly be so successful as to escape an air of being, if not irreverent, at all events out of place. His best verses are contained in that which is also his most sceptical poem, 'The Religion of Reason.' It exhibits a man in the midst of doubt, in any case 'undoubting God,' and waiting in suspense: Until at last, Death opening truth's barr'd gate, 'tis time to see Christopher Pitt (1699-1748), who used to be well known as the translator of Virgil's Æneid, and whom Hervey calls the famous Mr. Pitt of New College,' 2 was the author of some paraphrases of part of the Book of Job, and of some of the Psalms. The following is, on the whole, a favourable example. It is from the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses of the 144th Psalm : Extend thy hand, thou kind, all gracious God, Down from the heaven of heavens, thy bright abode, The hallow'd theme shall teach me how to sing, 1 B. Poets, viii. 731. 2 Meditation among the Tombs.' Works, vi. 267. B. Poets, viii. 612. The last verses savour of that characteristic bane of eighteenth-century verse, the aspiring to the artificial graces of poetic diction.' The two lines omitted are worse, 'To thee my muse shall consecrate her lays, Yet it is not worse than Pope's 'Nymphs of Solyma.' But it is full time to recur to the opening years of the century, and remark on the condition of congregational hymnody at that time. The New Version was in most churches first beginning to supplant the old. It had been allowed by the Court at Kensington'-the only authority upon which it rests -in 1696. Nahum Tate (1652-1715), a year or two after succeeded Shadwell as Court Poet. His personal character was not of a kind to do great credit, either to his Laureate office, or to his yet higher function as chief hymnist to the Church of England. 'He was a good-natured, fuddling companion,' says Southey, quoting from Oldys, and his latter days were spent in the Mint as a refuge from his creditors.' 2 He wrote some dramas of no great note, and was an accomplice with Shadwell in 'improving upon' King Lear and others of Shakspeare's plays; an offence, of which it must be said in extenuation, that Otway, Davenant, and Dryden, had done the same. Nicholas Brady (1659–1716), his associate in versifying the Psalms, had been an active promoter of the Revolution, and was basking in royal favour as chaplain to the King and Queen. He was also rector of the two benefices of Clapham and Richmond. It was not without a long struggle, which lasted in fact well into the present century, that Sternhold and Hopkins were at length fairly superseded, either by the New Version or by the later hymns. Their composition was supported not only by the strong Conservatism of the Church, but by the deliberate authority of many men of ability and weight. Bishop Bull greatly preferred it to the one that had recently come in; and his voice was constantly heard by his family very early in the morning or late at night, singing the familiar Psalms. Bishop Beveridge was quite of the same opinion. He thought it purer and plainer English, and that it kept nearer to the text.5 Hearne spoke with disgust of the 'intolerable alterations' that had been made, especially in the ' C. B. Pearson, in Oxford Essays, 1858, 121. 2 Southey, Later English Poets, i. 173. R. Nelson's Life of Bull, 61. 3 Qu. Rev. 35, 186-7. Defence of the Book of Psalms,' &c., 1710, quoted in Nelson's Life Bull, 62. change of fine English Saxon words for new-fangled phrases.' Bishop Horsley also defended it as a just and dignified rendering of the Psalms. And in country places more especially, where few could read, it was no light matter to set aside words which, wedded to their own tunes, had been known by rote for what-going back as it did to the earlier years of the Reformation-must have seemed like time immemorial. For a long time, therefore, yet to come, a great number, perhaps the bulk, of rustic congregations continued well satisfied with the psalmody they had learnt from their fathers; and of many a pious village home it might be said in Shenstone's words, Here oft the dame, on Sabbath's decent eve, Hymnèd such Psalms as Sternhold forth did mete; Uphang their useless lyres-small heart had they to sing.3 Yet notwithstanding use and association, and all else that could be said in favour of the Old Version, it was evidently full time that there should be some great improvement in Church psalmody. This had sunk to a very low ebb, and it was long before it began to revive. The Old Version, with the exception of that of the 100th Psalm, which was not by Sternhold and Hopkins at all, nor by their regular coadjutors, but by Kethe, an exile with Knox at Geneva in 1555,4 has very few real merits, and these, such as they are, not of a kind which society in the time of Queen Anne, or of the Georges, would readily appreciate. Among town congregations, therefore, it had fallen into general contempt. Robert Nelson, while reprobating such a pretext, says that not only were there very few who could be prevailed upon to join in psalmody, but that 'the generality of those who are otherwise very serious, excuse themselves from the bad poetry of the 1 Reliquiæ Hearnianæ (Bliss), Oct. 21, 1723. Old Version.' The 'dids,' and 'ekes,' and 'ayes,' 2 and other obsolete words and phrases gave great offence3 to a generation which prided itself upon improved and correct language. Wesley called it 'scandalous doggerel;' Gay ridiculed Blackmore's version by saying that Sternhold himself he outSternholded." Watts thought it one chief cause of the 'entire neglect' into which congregational singing had fallen; although, said he in another place, some have got to think that there is danger in anything but a dull hymn or two at church in tunes of equal dulness,' and that anything 'that arises a degree or two above Mr. Sternhold is too airy for worship.' The decline of psalmody, wrote Romaine in 1775, 'happened when vital religion began to decay among us, more than a century ago. It was a gradual decay, and went on till at last there was a general complaint against Sternhold and Hopkins. Their translation was treated as poor, flat stuff. The wits ridiculed it; the profane blasphemed it. Good men did not defend it. Then it fell into such contempt that people were ready to receive anything in its room.' 8 It can scarcely be doubted that the New Version was, upon the whole, a decided improvement upon the older one. It has been much decried; but if psalms only were to be used in church to the exclusion of other hymns, it must form a large proportion of every selection. The candid critic,' remarks a well-informed writer of the Quarterly Review,' 'who shall have taken the pains to compare the different versions, will entertain no contemptible opinion of Tate and Brady. This version will furnish more stanzas adapted to the purpose of parochial psalmody, if not excellent, yet unobjectionable, than any with which we are acquainted.' Versions and 1 Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, 1712, p. 62. 2 Spectator, No. 204. * Quoted by Pearson in Oxford Essays, 1858, 140. poet.' 9 Nelson, as above. Gay's Poems, Verses to be placed under the Picture of England's Arch Essay on the Improvement of Psalmody.'-Works, 9, 3. • Romaine's Essay on Psalmody, 1775, p. 104. 9 Q. Rev. 38, 31. Among their best may be specified the 19th ('The heavens declare thy glory, Lord'), the 34th ('Through all the changing'), the 42nd (‘As pants'), the 51st (Have mercy'), the 84th ('O God of hosts'), the 100th paraphrases of Psalms were produced in surprising abundance throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the Review just referred to a number of them are mentioned, and in some instances, quoted. The list, including those of a somewhat earlier date, contains very great and very little names: Archbishop Parker, Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Bacon, Milton, George Herbert, Sandys, Bishop Hall, Bishop King, Patrick, Rouse, Wither, Sir John Denham, Addison, Ford, Milbourne, Blackmore, Miles Smyth, Goodridge, Barton, Woodford, Watts, Merrick, Mason. To these may be added, in the seventeenth century, King James I., and in the eighteenth, a host of additional names, including Doddridge, Toplady, the three Wesleys, Elizabeth Rowe, Walter Harte, Smart, Darby, Christopher Pitt, Romaine, Bishop Horne. If the list were to include all who had now and then paraphrased a Psalm or two, almost the greater part of the minor poets must be added. Watts, writing in 1707, said that he had seen above twenty versions of the Psalter by persons of richer and meaner talents.' 2 A modern writer tells us that 'since the Reformation there have been at least sixty-five musical versions of the whole Book of Psalms, besides legions of less ambitious attempts.'3 Some of those above enumerated, especially that by George Sandys, are no doubt very superior in poetical merit to the renderings of Tate and Brady. But superior poetical merit is only one of many qualifications for congregational psalmody, and it was not without fair grounds of reason that the New Version, although only allowed' by authority, much as Wither's and Blackmore's were, should have firmly established itself, while its rivals all passed into greater or less obscurity. The New Version, however, did not do much towards a revival of congregational singing. 'Psalmody,' wrote Secker in 1741, 'hath declined of late within most of our memories, ('With one consent '), and the 139th ('Thou, Lord, by strictest search'); also the well-known Christmas hymn, written by Tate in 1712, 'As shepherds watched.' Qu. Rev. 26-32. 2 An Enquiry into the right Way of fitting the Book of Psalms for Christian Worship,' Works, 9, 27. 3 Fraser's Magazine, Sept. 1860, 312. ▲ Oxford Essays, 1858, 141. 5 'Life of Blackmore,' in Anderson's ed. of B. Poets, 7, 584. |