The Old Version, which bears the name of Sternhold and Hopkins, was the work of several hands. John Hopkins was the largest contributor. Of his life little is known. Warton called him not the least of the British poets of his day, and his versions are generally considered superior to Sternhold’s. They are no doubt smoother, but I cannot see that they have more poetry in them. Sometimes his lines are ridiculously divided, and it is difficult to imagine that at any period they could have been regarded as tolerable.
It was, however, a psalm of Hopkins’s which comforted John Wesley after hearing a sermon, of which he disapproved, at Bow, in 1738. ‘God answered the thoughts of my heart, and took away my fear, in a manner I did not expect, even by the words of Thomas Sternhold. They were these (sung immediately after the sermon)’—
Thy mercy is above all things,
O God; it doth excel;
In trust whereof, as in Thy wings,
The sons of men shall dwell.
Within Thy house they shall be fed
With plenty at their will;
Of all delights they shall be sped,
And take thereof their fill.