many, Italy, France, and the Netherlands." In this col- lection were included contributions by Tallis, Morley, Dowland, and all the great masters of the day, as well as by Ravenscroft himself, who contributed the tunes St. David's, Bangor, and Canterbury. The name of John Milton, father of the poet, appears as composer of the tunes York and Norwich. According to the then prevalent usage, the subject, or air, was given to the tenor voice. This custom was first departed from in the Whole Book of Psalms, in Three Parts, published in 1671, compiled and arranged by John Play ford — whom Sir J. Hawkins calls the "father of modern psalmody" — where we have the more proper practice, which has since obtained, of making the melody the soprano part. Croft, Courteville, Cary, the Bachs, and Handel have since that time contributed to the psal- mody in use in Britain.
In 1603 was printed a Welsh translation of the Psalms, made by William Myddleton, a celebrated poet and navigator. Another version appeared about the commencement of the 17th century, from the pen of another eminent Welsh poet, Edmund Prys, archdea- con of Merioneth. A revised edition of this version, by the Rev. Peter Williams, is now in use throughout the principality of Wales. An entire version of the Psalms in the Erse, or native Irish language, made bv the Rev. Ur. M'Leod, the Rev. F. H. Beamish, Mr. Thaddeus Con- nellan, and Mr. David Murphy, was published at Lon- don in 1836; and some portions of the Psalms have been translated into the Mohawk language by an un- known author (London, 1787, and Hamilton, Toronto, 1839), and into the language of the Munceys, a native tribe of North Americans, by the Rev. Richard Flood, a missionary to them from the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Admirably as most of the psalms are adapted to gen- eral use in public worship, it was yet felt, in the English churches, that some other metrical expressions of those astonishing hopes and consoling promises which the new dispensation has given to man in the N. T. would not be altogether inappropriate. The great German Re- former had written hymns, and many of the other Con- tinental divines of the revived faith in Christ had done likewise. Yet no English People's Hymn-book was brought out until the closing years of the 18th centu- ry, i. e. none that was placed on cottage tables beside the Bible, and none for use when Christians met and chanted beside the grave, although they had the Te Deum and Magnificat and the Psalms. Bishop Malt by published A Selection of Psalms and Hymns before his elevation to the episcopate. Various selections were made and published by various individuals, principally (as it appears) since the year 1770, and these selections are derived from Dr. Watts's Imitation of the Psalms of David in the Language of the New Testament (1707), and from his Hymns (1719) ; the Hymns of the Rev. Dr. Doddridge; those of the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley ; the Olney Hymns, composed by William Cow- per and John Newton ; and the sacred compositions dispersed through the works of the British poets of the 18th century. The Wesleys, however — so it seems — were the first who really gave a People's Hymn-book to England, unless that of Dr. Watts, published about the beginning of the 18th century (in 1709), may be called so. " To Dr. Watts," says a modern biographer, " must be assigned the praise of beginning, in our lan- guage, a class of productions which have taken a de- cided hold upon the universal religious mind. On this account Christian worshippers of every denomination, and of every English-speaking land, owe him an incal- culable debt of gratitude. Mason, Baxter, and others had preceded Watts as hymn-writers; but their hymns were not used in public worship. Prejudice prevented the use of anything beyond the Psalms, and those not yet in their Christian rendering; but Watts made the Christian hymn part of modern public worship." As a supplement to Dr. Watts's hymns, Dr. Doddridge pub-
l'SALMODY
"4.
PSALMODY
lished a collection entitled Hymns Founded m Texts mil Holy & After these sing-
era came the tn a hymns are song op to
tliis- day. and John Newton and Cowper, who produced I
Of the state of psalmody among the Puritans at the close of the 10th. and in the former part of the 17th century, we have no certain information. During the commonwealth. William Barton published a metrical version in 1044. reprinted in 1045 with the license of the Protector Cromwell. This version wa- - with much favor, arid appears to have retained its pop- ularity for many years. In 1040. Francis Rous, the Presbyterian provost of Eton College, publis
sanctioned by the imprimatur 1 ommons,in pursuance of tl mendation of the Westminster assembly of divines. This version was subsequently revised by William Barton for the optional use of churches in England, but it never became popular. But the greatest im- provement in psalmody, not merely among Protestant s, but among all English congregations, was effected by the learned and Rev. Dr. Fsaac Watts. For a just appreciation of the value of his publication the read r is necessarily referred to Mr. Cornier-
. ; . 48-105, in which work will be found notices of some eminent versifiers of psalms and hymns, both Episcopalian and Nonconformist, who preceded Dr. Watts. The - - of Dr. Watts, and