No. CVI.
While pursuing his free inquiry into the origin of evil, I doubt, if Soame Jenyns had as much pleasure, as Sir Joseph Banks enjoyed, in his famous investigation, if fleas were the prototypes of lobsters.
These inquiries are immeasurably pleasant. When a boy, I well remember my cogitations, what became of the old moons; and how joyously I accepted the solution of my nurse, who had quite a turn for judicial astrology, that they were unquestionably cut up, for stars.
It is truly delightful to look into these occult matters—rerum cognoscere causas. There are subjects of deep interest, which lie somewhat nearer the surface of the earth—the origin of certain usages and undertakings, and the authorship of certain long-lived works, which appear to be made of a species of literary everlasting, but whose original proprietors have never been discovered. I have great respect, for those antiquarians, whose researches have unlocked so many of these long hidden mysteries; and, however bare-headed I may be, when the venerated names of Speed, or Strype, or Stow, or Rushworth, or Wood, or Holinshed occurs to my memory, I have an involuntary tendency to take off my hat.
It was, doubtless, in allusion to their grotesque and uncouth versification, that the Earl of Rochester prepared his well-known epigram—
“Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms,
When they translated David’s Psalms.”
This version, which held its ground, for a century and a half, and, as Chalmers says, slowly gave place to the translation, by Tate and Brady, had an origin, of which, I presume, few individuals are apprized.
Thomas Sternhold lived to translate fifty-one only of the Psalms; and the first edition was published in 1549, with this title—“All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sterneholde, late groome of the king’s majestye’s robes did in his lyfetime drawe into Englyshe metre.”
About this period, the larger cities of the kingdom had become inundated with obscene and blasphemous songs, to such a degree, that some powerful expedient seemed to be required, for the removal of this insufferable grievance. Accordingly, the felicitous idea occurred to Mr. Thomas Sternhold, of substituting the Psalms of David, as versified by himself, for the bacchanalian songs, then in use, throughout the realm. He anticipated a practical illustration of the command of St. James—“Is any merry let him sing Psalms.”
Ostensibly prepared for the use of the churches, the moving consideration, for this version, with Mr. Sternhold, was such as I have shown it to be. The motive is plainly stated, in the title-page—“Set forth and allowed to be sung in churches of the people together, before and after evening prayer, as also before and after sermon; and moreover, in private houses, for their godly solace and comfort, laying apart all ungodly songs and ballads, which tend only to the nourishment of vice and the corrupting of youth.”