verbs had been in a former impression unfairly attributed to Thomas Sternhold. The other chapters of Scripture are from Ecclesiasticus and saint Paul's Epistles. We must not confound this John Hall with his cotemporary Eliseus Hall, who pretended to be a missionary from heaven to the queen, prophesied in the streets, and wrote a set of metrical visions. Metre was now become the vehicle of enthusiasm, and the puritans seem to have appropriated it to themselves, in opposition to our service, which was in prose*. William Baldwyn, of whom more will be said when we come to the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES, published a Phraselike declaration in English meeter on the CANTICLES or SONGS OF SOLOMON, in 1549†. "The Psalmes of David translated into English metre by T. Sternhold, sir T. Wyat, and William Hunnis, with certaine chapters of the Proverbes and select Psalmes by John Hall." I think I have seen a book by Hall called the "Court of Virtue," containing some or all of these sacred songs, with notes, 1565. 8vo. [16mo.] He has a copy of verses prefixed to Gale's Enchiridion of Surgery, Lond. 1563. See John Reade's Preface to his translation of F. Arcaeus's Anatomy. 4 Strype, Ann. i. p. 291. ch. xxv. ed. 1725. [I suppose that church service of chant and anthem is here meant; otherwise, their preaching and praying was at least as bad prose as ours.-ASHBY.] † [With the sight of this rare book I have been favoured by a friend; its title runs thus: "The CANTICLES or BALADES of SALOMON, phraselyke declared in Englysh metres, by WILLIAM BALDWIN. Halleluiah. Syng to the Lord sum pleasant song, Psalme cxviii. Colophon: "Imprinted at London by William Baldwin, servaunt with Edwarde Whitchurche." Baldwin, in the dedication to his royal patron, expresses a pious wish that these swete and mistical songs may drive out of office "the baudy balades of lecherous love," which were indited and sung by idle courtiers in the houses of princes and noblemen. To forward the same purpose, he tells us "his Majesty [Edw. VI.] had given a notable example, in causyng the Psalmes, brought into fine Englysh meter, by his godly disposed servaunt Thomas Sternholde, to be song openly before his grace, in the hearing of all his subjectes." Baldwin's metrical paraphrase of the Song of Solomon exhibits a greater facility of versification It is dedicated to Edward the Sixthe. Nineteen of the psalms in rhyme are extant by Francis Seagar, printed by William Seres in 1553, with musical notes, and dedicated to Lord Rusself. Archbishop Parker also versified the psalter; not from any opposition to our liturgy, but, either for the private amusement and exercise of his religious exile, or that the people, whose predilection for psalmody could not be suppressed, might at least be furnished with a rational and proper translation. It was finished in 1557, and a few years afterwards printed by Day, the archbishop's printer, in quarto, with this title, "The whole Psalter translated into English metre, which contayneth an hundredth and fifty psalmes. The first Quinquagenes. Quoniam omnis terræ deus, psallite sapienter. Ps. 14. 47. Imprinted at London by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate beneath Saint Martyn's. Cum privilegio per decennium." Without date of the printer', or name of the translator. In the metrical preface prefixed, he tries to remove the objections of those who censured versifications of Scripture, he pleads the comforts of such an employment to the persecuted theologist who suffers voluntary banishment, and thus displays the power of sacred music: The psalmist stayde with tuned songe The rage of myndes agast, the typographical antiquities of Herbert. Come, wend unto my garden gay, My sister and my spowse; A fantastical and almost unintelligible Wheras ther is a boke called Beware the The verie truth is so that STREMER made Nor no suche false fabels fell ever from But wil ye gladli knoe who made that boke in dede, One WYLLIAM BALDEWINE-God graunt him wel to spede.-PARK.] In quarto. I have seen also "The Ballads or Canticles of Solomon in Prose and Verse." Without date, or name of printer or author. * [Sir Thomas Smith, the learned secretary to Edward VI. and to his sister Elizabeth, while a prisoner in the Tower in 1549, translated eleven of David's psalms into English metre, and composed three metrical prayers, which are now in the British Museum. MSS. Reg. 17. A. xvii.-PARK.] f At the end is a poem, entitled "A Description of the Lyfe of Man, the World and Vanities thereof." Princ. "Who on earth can justly rejoyce?" The second quinquagene follows, fol. 146. The third and last, fol. 280. h In black letter. Among the prefaces are four lines from lord Surrey's Ecclesiastes. Attached to every psalm is a prose collect. At the end of the psalms are versions of Te Deum, Benedictus, Quicunque vult, &c. &c. Day had a license, June 3d, 1561, to print the psalms in metre. Ames, p. 238. With golden stringes such harmonie His harpe so sweete did wrest, That he relievd his phrenesie Whom wicked sprites possest. Whatever might at first have been his design, it is certain that his version, although printed, was never published; and notwithstanding the formality of his metrical preface above-mentioned, which was professedly written to show the spiritual efficacy or virtue of the psalms in metre, and in which he directs a distinct and audible mode of congregational singing, he probably suppressed it, because he saw that the practice had been abused to the purposes of fanaticism, and adopted by the puritans in contradiction to the national worship; or at least that such a publication, whatever his private sentiments might have been, would not have suited the nature and dignity of his high office in the church. Some of our musical antiquaries, however, have justly conjectured, that the archbishop, who was skilled in music, and had formerly founded a music-school in his college of Stoke Clare*, intended these psalms, which are adapted to complicated tunes of four parts, probably constructed by himself, and here given in score, for the use of cathedrals; at a time, when compositions in counterpoint were uncommon in the church, and when that part of our choir-service called the motet or anthem, which admits a more artificial display of harmony, and which is recommended and allowed in queen Elizabeth's earliest ecclesiastical injunctions, was yet almost unknown, or but in a very imperfect state. Accordingly, although the direction is not quite comprehensible, he orders many of them to be sung by the rector chori, or chantor, and the quier, or choir, alternately. That at least he had a taste for music, we may conclude from the following not inelegant scale of modulation, prefixed to his eight tunes above-mentioned. He thus remonstrates against the secular ballads : Ye songes so nice, ye sonnets all, Ye worke mens myndes but bitter gall * [In the county of Suffolk. From the statutes of which college, as framed by Dr. Parker, Sir John Hawkins has given the following curious extract:"Item to be found in the college, henceforth a number of quiristers, to the number of eight or ten or more, as may be borne conveniently of the stock, to have sufficient meat, drink, broth, and learning. Of which said quiristers, after their breasts (i. e. voices) be changed, we will the most apt of wit and capacity be helpen with exhibition of forty shillings, four marks, or three pounds a-piece, to be students in some college in Cambridge." Hist. of Music, iii. 508.-PARK.] + [This scale, however elegant," says Mr. Ashby, "will not alone prove Archbishop Parker's right to this version of the psalms; because it is not only likely in general, that the translator would be a lover of music, but it so happens that the other claimant, John Keeper, had studied music and poetry at Wells." I presume that the following extract from the archbishop's diary will establish his claim to the performance. "This 6 August (his birth-day), Ann. Dom. 1557, I persist in the same constancy, upholden by the grace and goodness of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; by whose inspiration I have finished the Book of Psalms, turned into vulgar verse." (Strype's Life of Archbishop Parker.) "Vulgar" here means vernacular; as in the ministration of bap The first is meke, devout to see, The second sad, in maiesty: The third doth rage, and roughly brayth, What follows is another proof, that he had proposed to introduce these psalms into the choir-service. "The tenor of these partes be for the people when they will syng alone, the other partes put for the greater quiers, or to suche as will syng or play them privately1." How far this memorable prelate, perhaps the most accomplished scholar that had yet filled the archbishoprick of Canterbury, has succeeded in producing a translation of the psalter preferable to the common one, the reader may judge from these stanzas of a psalm highly poetical, in which I have exactly preserved the translator's peculiar use of the hemistic punctuation. To feede my neede: he will me leade To pastures greene and fat: He forth brought me : in libertie, My soule and hart: he did convart, Of right wisness: in holiness, His name such vertue hath. Yea though I go through Death his wo tism, the sponsors are directed to let the 1 As the singing-psalms were never a part of our liturgy, no rubrical directions are any where given for the manner of performing them. In one of the Prefaces, written about 1550, it is ordered, "Whereas heretofore there hath been great diversitie of saying and singing in churches within this realm, some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, some the use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln; now from henceforth all the whole realm shall have but one use." But this is said in reference to the chants, responds, suffrages, versicles, introites, kyrie-eleeysons, doxologies, and other melodies of the Book of Common Prayer, then newly published under lawful authority, with musical notes by Marbeck, and which are still used; that no arbitrary variations should be made in the manner of singing these melodies, as had been lately the case with the Roman missal, in performing which some cathedrals affected a manner of their own. The Salisbury missal was most famous and chiefly followed. Thou shalt provyde: a table wyde, For me against theyr spite: With oyle my head: thou hast bespred, I add, in the more sublime character, a part of the eighteenth psalm, in which Sternhold is supposed to have exerted his powers most successfully, and without the interruptions of the pointing, which perhaps was designed for some regulations of the music, now unknown. The earth did shake, for feare did quake, The hils theyr bases shooke; Removed they were, in place most fayre, Darke smoke rose to hys face therefro, The heavens full lowe he made to bowe, And darkness great was undersete He rode on hye, and dyd so flye, Upon the Cherubins; He came in sight, and made his flight Upon the wyng of wyndes. The Lorde from heaven sent downe his leaven And thundred thence in ire; He thunder cast in wondrous blast With hayle and coales of fyre. Here is some degree of spirit, and a choice of phraseology. But on the whole, and especially for this species of stanza, Parker will be found to want facility, and in general to have been unpractised in writing English verses. His abilities were destined to other studies, and adapted to employments of a more archiepiscopal nature. The industrious Strype, Parker's biographer, after a diligent search never could gain a sight of this translation*; nor is it even mentioned by Ames, the inquisitive collector of our typographical antiquities. In the late Mr. West's library there was a superb copy, once belonging to m Fol. 13. " follow. • Fol. 35. [Neither did bishop Tanner; nor does Dr. Burney, in speaking of it in his History of Music, appear to have seen any copy. By Sir John Hawkins the discovery was announced. Mr. Todd describes a copy very curiously bound in the church library of Canterbury. See his Milton, vi. 116. -PARK.] |