A physician of eminence has told us of the melancholy termination of the life of a gentleman who in a state of mental aberration cut his throat; the loss of blood restored his mind to a healthy condition; but the wound unfortunately proved fatal.
It would be polluting these pages with ribaldry, obscenity, and blasphemy, were I to give specimens of some hymns of the Moravians and the Methodists, and some of the still lower sects.
There is a rare tract, entitled "Singing of Psalmes, vindicated from the charge of Novelty," in answer to Dr. Russell, Mr. Marlow, &c., 1698. It furnishes numerous authorities to show that it was practised by the primitive Christians on almost every occasion. I shall directly quote a remarkable passage.
In the curious tract already referred to, the following quotation is remarkable; the scene the fancy of MAROT pictured to him, had anciently occurred. St. Jerome, in his seventeenth Epistle to Marcellus, thus describes it: "In Christian villages little else is to be heard but Psalms; for which way soever you turn yourself, either you have the ploughman at his plough singing Hallelujahs, the weary brewer refreshing himself with a psalm, or the vine-dresser chanting forth somewhat of David's."
Mr. Douce imagined that this alludes to a common practice at that time among the Puritans of burlesquing the plain chant of the Papists, by adapting vulgar and ludicrous music to psalms and pious compositions.—Illust. of Shakspeare, i. 355. Mr. Douce does not recollect his authority. My idea differs. May we not conjecture that the intention was the same which induced Sternhold to versify the Psalms, to be sung instead of lascivious ballads; and the most popular tunes came afterwards to be adopted, that the singer might practise his favourite one, as we find it occurred in France?
Ed. Philips in his "Satyr against Hypocrites," 1689, alludes to this custom of the pious citizens—
—— Singing with woful noise,
Like a cracked saint's bell jarring in the steeple,
Tom Sternhold's wretched prick-song to the people.
Crescembini, at the close of "La bellezza della Volgar Poesia." Roma, 1700.
History of the Middle Ages, ii. 584. See also Mr. Rose's Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. 204. Mr. Hallam has observed, that "such an institution as the society degli Arcadi could at no time have endured public ridicule in England for a fortnight."