"And al the skye from ende to ende
he compasseth about,
Nothing can hyde it from his heate
but he wil finde it out."
I cannot express the indignation with which I read these belittling and
weakening alterations and interpolations; they are so unjust and
so degrading to the reputation of Sternhold. It seems worse than
forgery--worse than piracy; for instead of stealing from the defenceless
dead poet, it foists upon him a spurious and degrading progeny; there is no
word to express this tinkering libellous literary crime.
Cromwell had a prime favorite among these psalms; it was the one hundred
and ninth and is known as the "cursing psalm." Here are a few lines from
it:--
"As he did cursing love, it shall
betide unto him so,
And as he did not blessing love
it shall be farre him fro,
As he with cursing clad himselfe
so it like water shall
Into his bowels and like oyl
Into his bones befall.
As garments let it be to him
to cover him for aye
And as a girdle wherewith he
may girded be alway."
Another authority gives the "cursing psalm" as the nineteenth of King
James's version; but there is nothing in "The heavens declare the glory of
God," &c. to justify the nickname of "cursing."
It is said when the tyrannical ruler Andros visited New Haven and attended
church there that (Sternhold and Hopkins' Version being used) the fearless
minister very inhospitably gave out the fifty-second psalm to be sung. The
angry governor, who took it as a direct insult, had to listen to the lining
and singing of these words, and I have no doubt they were roared out with a
lusty will:--
1. Why dost thou tyrant boast thyself
thy wicked deeds to praise
Dost thou not know there is a God
whose mercies last alwaies?
2. Why doth thy mind yet still deuise
such wisked wiles to warp?
Thy tongue untrue, in forging lies
is like a razer sharp.
* * * * *
4. Thou dost delight in fraude & guilt
in mischief bloude and wrong:
Thy lips have learned the flattering stile
O false deceitful tongue.
5. Therefore shall God for eye confounde
and pluck thee from thy place.
Thy seed and root from out the grounde
and so shall thee deface;
6. The just when they behold thy fall
with feare will praise the Lord:
And in reproach of thee withall
cry out with one accord.
When the unhappy King Charles fled from Oxford to a camp of troops he also
was insulted by having the same psalm given out in his presence by the
boorish chaplain of the troops. After the cruel words were ended the
heartsick king rose and asked the soldiers to sing the fifty-sixth psalm.
Whenever I read the beautiful and pathetic words, as peculiarly appropriate
as if they had been written for that occasion only, I can see it all before
me,--the great camp, the angry minister, the wretched but truly royal king;
and I can hear the simple and noble song as it pours from the lips of
hundreds of rude soldiers:
1. Have mercy Lord on mee I pray
for man would mee devour.
He fighteth with me day by day
and troubleth me each hour.
2. Mine enemies daily enterprise
to swallow mee outright
To fight against me many rise
O thou most high of might
* * * * *
5. What things I either did or spake
they wrest them at thier wil:
And all the councel that they take
is how to work me il.
6. They all consent themselves to hide
close watch for me to lay:
They spie my pathes, and snares have layd
to take my life away.
7. Shall they thus scape on mischief set,
thou God on them wilt frowne:
For in his wrath he will not let
to throw whole kingdomes downe.
It would perhaps be neither just nor conducive to proper judgment to gather
only a florilege of noble verses from Sternhold and Hopkins' Version and
point out none of the "weedy-trophies," the quaint and even uncouth lines
which disfigure the work. We must, however, in considering and judging
them, remember that many words and even phrases which at present
seem rather ludicrous or undignified had, in the sixteenth century,
significations which have now become obsolete, and which were then neither
vulgar nor unpoetical. I also have been forced to take my selections from
a copy of Sternhold and Hopkins printed in 1599, and bound up with a
"Breeches Bible;" for I have access to no earlier edition. Sternhold
and Hopkins themselves may not be in truth responsible for many of
the crudities. Hopkins, in his rendition of the 12th verse of the
seventy-fourth Psalm, thus addresses the Deity:--
"Why doost withdraw thy hand abacke
and hide it in thy lappe?
O pluck it out and bee not slacke
to give thy foes a rap."
"Rap" may have meant a heavier, a mightier blow then than it does
now-a-days.