broadly meaningful as to be the expression for all the persons in common, yet at the same time of so specific a meaning that they are the expression of the particular idea of every separate person. Probably no two minds will be thinking of the same thing by the word "blessings." It may mean to a farmer the warm sunlight on his crops; to a school-boy, a happy half-holiday; to some woman, that her boy has come safely home from sea; to some one else a more intangible kind of "blessing." It is simple, immediately clear, and expressive of profound meaning. The second line,

Praise him all creatures here below,

may express to one mind the idea of the unity of all believers. For another mind it bears the idea of religious propaganda, missionary zeal, some such notion as, Let it be brought to pass that all people will know the truth and will give honor only to what is praiseworthy. For another mind it may express the idea of unity of nature, i. e., Let us recognize the fact that clouds and hills, birds, flowers, rivers, and seas speak of the majesty of the Creator. To another mind 't may balance the idea, "The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." To another it may be a call to acclaim a mystically known Supreme Being. To another the line is but a vague, grandly sounding succession of words that fit an undefined mood of elevation.

Praise him above, ye heavenly host,

brings to one mind the idea of saints and angels in heaven; to another mind the physical wonders of the sky called to witness the might and wisdom of the Creator, the stars singing together. To another it brings thoughts of his own dead whom he believes to be part of the heavenly host. All these meanings and more may be quite legitimately understood in the words. Again, the whole passage is a musical combination of words connoting great good, and affording full artistic enjoyment. The words are simple, clear, rich, musical, warm with emotion, immediately apparent to the intellect, and highly provocative of the imagination.

With all this it is a lyric easily perceived by the eye, and easily retained in the memory. A child can sing it with understanding, while the most wise and prudent can think over it quite fixedly and longas an infinitely profound expression of the human mind. Grant that often the words are rolled out merely because they afford the singer's voice a smooth medium by which to float into harmony with other voices and the tones of the organ. Grant, too, that this or that one does not believe in any God or gods; the words still have something to engage his imagination if not his reason. To most of those who sing it it is true religion in the form of true poetry. It is lyrical in that it is an emotional outcry under harmonious control-control of measured cadence and rime. It is the outcry of one person so expressed as to be the cry of many. And, further, it is an individual cry so expressive of the

feelings of many that it becomes a corporate cry. Its terms are specific and at the same time general enough to incorporate a variety of shades of idea. With the latter half of the seventeenth century there came a new form of lyrical poetry into the English tongue. All along through the centuries there had been much lyrical poetry written and sung, but it had not been of the peculiar type which is an individual lyrical expression of faith, hope, and charity, and is at the same time the corporate expression of assemblages of people. Soon England was to have a hymn-book, a collection of native upspringing lyrics, after the manner of the matchless Psalms, rich songs for choral expression, yet at the same time the expression of the deep feelings of individual hearts.

CHAPTER IV

ENGLISH PSALMODY

N that strange poetical manifestation called

I psalmody the Psalms went through a test by way

of translation into the English tongue that no other book of poetry ever experienced, and that none other could have stood, attesting in a hundred ways the perpetual vitality of those ancient lyrics and their inextinguishable beauty. In translations, many of which were crude to the extent of grotesqueness, their lyric beauty and their spiritual power still moved deeply the hearts of a whole nation for generations. There were exquisite translations of many of the Psalms; but the translation in which they caught the ear of the English people, that of Sternhold and Hopkins, was not exquisite. Yet no other book except the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer ever went through so many editions and printings as did the Sternhold and Hopkins's "Psalms in Meter." Probably no other book was ever so roughly-although devoutly-handled in translation as the Psalms; surely no other book of songs ever so went to the heart of the nation. The Psalms in meter first sprang into prominence not in England nor in Germany but in France, at the court of Francis I. The gallant and facile court

poet, Clement Marot, was once urged by some one that in place of his "profane" verses he should turn the Psalms into the sprightly verse form of which he was so clearly a master. In 1533 that "poet of princes and prince of poets" began his versification. Within a few years he had published fifty-two of the Psalms constructed after the manner of his songs. And they caught the French ear as quickly as his songs had done. Printed without tunes, they were set to popular ballad airs and became enormously fashionable and popular. Soon the king and queen and notables of the realm had each selected a favorite psalm and set it to a favorite air. Prince Henry the Dauphin chose one for himself beginning,

Ainsi qu'on vit le cerf bruyere,

to sing as he rode hunting. This is the forty-second Psalm, rendered a century and a half later by Tate and Brady in England,

As pants the hart for cooling streams,

The king of Navarre selected the psalm beginning,

Revenge moy prens la querelle.

Catharine de' Medici chose one for herself, and also procured a copy of the Bible. The king of Spain sent gifts to the poet requesting a special versification of his favorite Psalm. The austere John Calvin was charmed by the songs, and Marot's wish came true, that the boatmen and wagoners and har