52 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED
notes were set to them in the hope that the courtiers would sing them instead of their amorous and obscene songs. His forty versions are nearly all in C.M., with two rhymes only, like the ballad of Chevy Chace. He wished to make sacred ballads for the people. The early and lasting success of the Version is due to this use of a few simple metres. It became so popular that it even displaced the Te Deum and other Canticles from the Church Service.
His first edition, undated, contains nineteen psalms, and is in the British Museum. Certayne Psalmes, chose out of the Psalter of Dauid, and drawe into Englishe metre by Thomas Sternhold, grome of ye Kynge s Maiestie s roobes. An edition of 1560 describes the version as very mete to be used of all sorts of people privately for their godlye solace and comfort : laying aparteall ungodlye songes and ballades, which tende only to the nourishing of vice and corrupting of youth. Just before his death he published versions of thirty-seven Psalms dedicated to King Edward. The dedication says, Albeit I cannot give to your Majesty great loaves, or bring into the Lord s barn great handfuls, I am bold to present unto your Majesty a few crumbs which I have picked up from under the Lord s board. John Hopkins added seven versions in the edition of 1551. Rochester poked much fun at the parish clerk, who was singing from the Old Version as Charles II passed by
Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms, When they translated David s psalms,
To make the heart right glad : But had it been King David s fate To hear thee sing and them translate,
By twould set him mad.
Thomas Fuller says Sternhold and Hopkins were men whose piety was better than their poetry, and they had drunk more of Jordan than of Helicon. 3 Jewel describes the effect produced in Queen Elizabeth s time by congregations of 6,000 persons, young and old, singing the Old Version psalms after the preaching at St. Paul s Cross.
One verse may show the oddities of the version
Why dost withdraw Thy hand aback
And hide it in Thy lap ? Come, pluck it out, and be not slack
To give Thy foes a rap.
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