_Parish Clerks and Politics._--In _Twenty-six Psalms of Thanksgiving and
Praise, Love and Glory, for the use of a Parish Church_ (Exon., And. Brice,
1725), the rector (who compiled it), among other reasons for omitting all
the _imprecatory_ Psalms, says,--
"Lest a parish clerk, or any other, should be whetting his _spleen_, or
obliging his _spite_, when he should be entertaining his devotion."
That such practices were indulged in, we have the farther evidence of
Bramston the satirist:
"Not long since _parish clerks_, with saucy airs,
Apply'd _King David's Psalms_ to _state-affairs_."[3]
Can any readers of "N. & Q." point out examples of such misapplication?