a rigid reformer, he became fcandalized at the obfcene fongs ufed there, turned into English metre 51 of David's Pfalms, and caufed mufical notes to be fet to them, thinking the courtiers would fing them instead of their fonnets; in which, however, with very few exceptions, he was disappointed.* "About this time," fays Dr. Heylin in his Church History, anno 1552, "the pfalms of David did firft begin to be compofed in english metre, by Thomas Sternhold, one of the grooms of the privy-chamber, who tranflating no more than thirty-feven,† left both example and encouragement to J. Hopkins, and others, to dispatch the reft. A device first taken up by one Clement Marot, one of the Grooms of the Bedchamber about King Francis the first, who being much addicted to Poetry, and having fome acquaintance with those that were thought to have inclined to the Reformation, was perfuaded by the learned Vatablus (Profeffor of the Hebrew language in Paris) to exercise his poetical fancy in tranflating fome of David's pfalms, for whofe fatisfaction and his own, he tranflated the first fifty of them; and after flying to Geneva, grew acquainted with Beza, who in fome tract of time tranflated the other hundred alfo, and caused

Wood's Ath, I, p. 76. † A mistake,

them

them to be fitted to feveral tunes, which thereupon began to be fung in private houses; and by degrees to be taken up in all churches of the French nation, which followed the Geneva platform. The Tranflation is faid by Strada to have been ignorantly, and perversely done, as being the work of a man altogether unlearned, but not to be compared with the barbarity and botching, which every where occurreth in the tranflation of Sternhold and Hopkins. Which notwithstanding being allowed for private devotion, they were by little and little brought into the use of the church, and permitted, rather than allowed to be fung, before and after Sermons. Afterwards they were printed and bound up in the Common-Prayer-Book, and at laft added by the Stationers to the end of the Bible. For tho' it be expreffed in the title of thofe Singing pfalms, that "they were fet forth and allowed to be fung in all churches before and after morning and evening-prayer, and alfo before and after Sermons," yet this allowance feems rather to have been a connivance than an approbation; no fuch allowance being any where found by fuch as have been moft induftrious and concerned in the fearch thereof. At first it was pretended only that the faid pfalms fhould be fung "before and after morning and evening prayer, and also before

and af.

and after Sermons ;" which fhews they were not to be intermingled with the public liturgy: but in fome tract of time, as the puritan faction grew in ftrength and confidence, they prevailed fo far in most places to thrust the Te Deum, the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc dimitties quite out of the Church."

JOHN HOPKINS turned into metre 58 of the pfalms. He was admitted A. B. at Oxford, 36 Hen. VIII. 1544, and supposed to have been afterwards a Clergyman of Suffolk. He was living 1556. Warton pronounces him a rather better poet than Sternhold. The other contributors to this undertaking were WILLIAM WHYTTINGHAM, afterwards Dean of Durham; THOMAS NORTON, of Sharpenhoe in Bedfordshire, Barrister at Law; and the affiftant to LORD BUCKHURST in the Tragedy of Gorboduc-a forward and bufy Calvinist in the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's reign,* who verfified 27 of the pfalms-and ROBERT WISDome, afterwards Archdeacon of Ely; who rendered the 25th pfalm of this verfion. The entire verfion was published by John Day in 1562, a verfion totally deftitute of elegance, fpirit, and propriety in which the most exalted ef

Wood's Ath. I. p. 77. + Warton, III. p. 170. It is not known to whom the initials W. K, and T. C. belong.

fufions

fufions of thanksgiving, and the most fublime imageries of the Divine Majefty, are lowered by a coldness of conception, weakened by frigid interpolations, and disfigured by a poverty of phrafeology.* WILLIAM HUNNIS, hereafter mentioned, verfified feveral of the pfalms 1550; as did JOHN HALL, of Maidstone; and WILLIAM BALDWIN; as well as FRANCIS SEAGERS. Archbishop PARKER likewife verfified the pfalter. But the most noted of theological verfifiers at this time was CHRISTOPHER TYE, Doctor of Mufic, who turned into metre the Acts of the Apostles, 1553.† And Warton adds that EDWARD the VIth may be ranked amongst the religious poets of his own reign.

At this period ARTHUR KELTON,§ a native of Shropshire or Wales, wrote the "Chronicle of the Brutes" in English verfe, printed 1547. The first drinking-fong, of any merit in our language, appeared in 1551. See it in Warton,

LUCAS SHEPHEARD.

"Lucas Shepheard, an english poet of Col"chefter, in Effex, of fo much note in Queen

Mary's reign, that he is thought not un-"worthy of mention by fome of our English "hiftorians."

SHEPHEARD is mentioned by Hollingshead. Warton fays that he appears to have been nothing more than a petty pamphleteer in the caufe of Calvinifm, and to have acquired the character of a poet from a metrical tranflation of fome of David's Pfalms, 1554.*

*Warton, III. p. 316.

THOMAS