Sabbath in Puritan New England Part 11

In the year 1540, at the instigation of King Francis, Marot presented a ma.n.u.script copy of his thirty new psalm-songs to Charles V., king of Spain, receiving therefor two hundred gold doubloons. Francis encouraged him by further gifts, and so praised his work that the author soon published the thirty in a book which he dedicated to the king; and to which he also prefixed a metrical address to the ladies of France, bidding these fair dames to place their

"doigts sur les espinettes Pour dire sainctes chansonnettes."

These "sainctes chansonnettes" became at once the rage; courtiers and princes, lords and ladies, ever ready for some new excitement, seized at once upon the novel psalm-songs, and having no special or serious music for them, cheerfully sang the sacred words to the ballad-tunes of the times, and to their gailliards and measures, without apparently any very deep thought of their religious meaning. Disraeli says that each of the royal family and each n.o.bleman chose for his favorite song a psalm expressive of his own feeling or sentiments. The Dauphin, as became a brave huntsman, chose

"Ainsi qu'on vit le cerf bruyre,"

"As the hart panteth after the water-brook,"

and he gayly and noisily sang it when he went to the chase. The Queen chose

"Ne vueilles pas, o sire, Me reprendre en ton ire."

"Rebuke me not in thine indignation."

Antony, king of Navarre, sung

"Revenge moy prens la querelle,"

"Stand up, O Lord! to revenge my quarrel,"

to the air of a dance of Poitou. Diane de Poictiers chose

"Du fond de ma pensee."

"From the depth of my heart."

But when from interest in her psalm-song she wished to further read and study the Bible, she was warned from the danger with horror by the Cardinal of Lorraine. This religious awakening and inquiry was of course deprecated and dreaded by the Romish Church; to the Sorbonne all this rage for psalm-singing was alarming enough. What right had the people to sing G.o.d's word, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be continually in my mouth"? The new psalm-songs were soon added to the list of "Heretical Books" forbidden by the Church, and Marot fled to Geneva in 1543. He had ere this been under ban of the Church, even under condemnation of death; had been proclaimed a heretic at all the cross-ways throughout the kingdom, and had been imprisoned. But he had been too good a poet and courtier to be lost, and the king had then interested himself and obtained the release of the versatile song writer. The fickle king abandoned for a second time the psalm versifier, who never again returned to France.

The austere and far-seeing Calvin at once adopted Marot's version of the Psalms, now enlarged to the number of fifty, and added them to the Genevan Confession of Faith,--recommending however that they be sung with the grave and suitable strains written, for them by Guillaume Frane.

The collection was completed with the a.s.sistance of Theodore Beza, the great theologian, and the demand for the books was so great that the printers could not supply them quickly enough. Ten thousand copies were sold at once,--a vast number for the times.

But Marot was not happy in Geneva with Calvin and the Calvinists, as we can well understand. Beza, in his "History of the French Reformed Churches"

said, "He (Marot) had always been bred up in a very bad school, and could not live in subjection to the reformation of the Gospel, and therefore went and spent the rest of his days in Piedmont, which was then in the possession of the king, where he lived in some security under the favor of the governor." He lived less than a year, however, dying in 1544.

These psalms of Marot's pa.s.sed through a great number and variety of editions. In addition to the Genevan publications, an immense number were printed in England. Nearly all the early editions were elegant books; carefully printed on rich paper, beautifully bound in rich moroccos and leathers, often emblazoned with gold on the covers, and with corners and clasps of precious metals,--they show the wealth and fas.h.i.+on of the owners.

When, however, it came to be held an infallible sign of "Lutheranisme" to be a singer of psalms, simpler and cheaper bindings appear; hence the dress of the French Psalm-Book found in New England is often dull enough, but invariably firm and substantial.

These psalms of Marot's are written in a great variety of song-measures, which seem scarcely as solemn and religious as the more dignified and even metres used by the early English writers. Some are graceful and smooth, however, and are canorous though never sonorous. They are pleasing to read with their quaint old spelling and lettering.

In the old Sigourney psalm-book the nineteenth psalm was thus rendered:--

"Les cieux en chaque lieu La puissance de Dieu Racourent aux humains Ce grand entour espars Publie en toutes parts L'ouvrage de ses mains.

"Iour apres iour coulant Du Saigneur va parlant Par longue experience.

La nuict suivant la nuict, Nous presche et nous instruicst De sa grad sapience"

Another much-employed metre was this, of the hundred and thirty-third psalm:--

"Asais aux bors do ce superbe fleuve Que de Babel les campagnes abreuve, Nos tristes coeurs ne pensoient qu' a Sion.

Chacun, helas, dans cette affliction Les yeux en pleurs la morte peinte au visage Pendit sa harpe aux saules du rivage."

A third and favorite metre was this:--

"Mais sa montagne est un sainct lieu: Qui viendra done au mont de Dieu?

Qui est-ce qui la tiendra place?

Le homine de mains et coeur lave, En vanite non esleve Et qui n'a jure en fallace."

Marot wrote in his preface to the psalms:--

"Thrice happy they who shall behold And listen in that age of gold As by the plough the laborer strays And carman 'mid the public ways And tradesman in his shop shall swell The voice in psalm and canticle, Sing to solace toil; again From woods shall come a sweeter strain, Shepherd and shepherdess shall vie In many a tender Psalmody, And the Creator's name prolong As rock and stream return their song."

Though these words seem prophetic, the gay and volatile Marot could never have foreseen what has proved one of the most curious facts in religious history,--that from the airy and unsubstantial seed sown by the French courtier in such a careless, thoughtless manner, would spring the great-spreading and deep-rooted tree of sacred song.

Little volumes of the metrical rendering of the Psalms, known as "Tate and Brady's Version," are frequently found in New England. It was the first English collection of psalms containing any smoothly flowing verses. Many of the descendants of the Puritans clung with affection to the more literal renderings of the "New England Psalm-Book," and thought the new verses were "tasteless, bombastic, and irreverent." The authors of the new book were certainly not great poets, though Nahum Tate was an English Poet-Laureate.

It is said of him that he was so extremely modest that he was never able to make his fortune or to raise himself above necessity. He was not too modest, however, to dare to make a metrical version of the Psalms, to write an improvement of King Lear, and a continuation of Absalom and Achitophel.

Brady--equally modest--translated the Aeneid in rivalry of Dryden. "This translation," says Johnson, "when dragged into the world did not live long enough to cry."

Such commonplace authors could hardly compose a version that would have a stable foundation or promise of long existence. But few of Tate and Brady's hymns are now seen in our church-collections of Hymns and Psalms. To them we owe, however, these n.o.ble lines, which were written thus:--

"Be thou, O G.o.d, exalted High, And as thy glory fills the Skie So let it be on Earth displaid Till thou art here as There obeyed."

The hymn commencing,--

"My soul for help on G.o.d relies, From him alone my safety flows,"

is also of their composition.

The first edition of these psalms was printed in 1696, and bore this t.i.tle, "The Book of Psalms, a new version in metre fitted to the tunes used in Churches. By N. Tate and N. Brady." It was dedicated to King William, and though its use was permitted in English churches, it never supplanted Sternhold and Hopkins' Version. In New England Tate and Brady's Psalms became more universally popular,--not, however, without fierce opposing struggles from the older church-members at giving up the venerated "Bay Psalm-Book."

Another version of Psalms which is occasionally found in New England is known as "Patrick's Version." The t.i.tle is "The Psalms of David in Metre Fitted to the Tunes used in Parish Churches by John Patrick, D.D. Precentor to the Charter House London." A curious feature of this octavo edition of 1701, which I have, is, "An Explication of Some Words of less Common Use For the Benefit of the Common People." Here are a few of the "explications:"--

"Celebrate--Make renown'd.

Climes--Countries differing in length of days.

Detracting--Lessening one's credit.

Fluid--Yielding.

Infest--Annoy.

Theam--Matter of Discourse.

Uncessant--Never ceasing.

Stupemlious--Astonis.h.i.+ng."

Baxter said of Patrick, "His holy affection and harmony hath so far reconciled the Nonconformists that diverse of them use his Psalms in their congregation." I doubt if the version were used in New England Nonconformist congregations. Some of his verses read thus:--

"Lord hear the pray'rs and mournfull cries Of mine afflicted estate, And with thy Comforts chear my soul, Before it is too late.

"My days consume away like Smoak Mine anguish is so great, My bones are not unlike a hearth Parched & dry with heat.

"Such is my grief I little else Can do but sigh and groan.