weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den.

"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

In spite of all the efforts of men, it still remains true that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the sovereign remedy for sin. Nor in saying this would we be thought to undervalue other agencies for the reformation of the world. We are well aware that one social organization is better than another. We regard the so

ciety of New England as far su• perior to the society of the South, or of Old England. But when any man or any set of men, attempts thoroughly to reform the world by human means and instrumentalities, without bringing the Christian religion to their aid-leaving it entirely out of mind as the Fourierites have virtually done, they may be sure that it will at last be said of them, "They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace."

To the eye of a critical inquirer, every particular department of literature presents materials to be explored, and facts and principles to be ascertained, beyond his expectations. The general reader will find this to be especially true of the subject to which the work we have named is devoted. The author has confined himself not only to one kind of poetry, the sacred lyric, among the many that are included in the voluminous collections of 'British Poets,' but to one class of such compositions-to metrical versions of the Psalms. Ordinary readers are the less acquainted with this subject, partly on account of their heedless familiarity with the particular version to which they have been most accustomed, and partly from the repulsiveness that many feel in the solemnity of the topics and the gravity of the occa

sions to which the Psalms belong. Metrical versions, moreover, labor under the disadvantage of inferior literary or poetical interest; because, instead of being original compositions, they only give a new and somewhat constrained form to matter which is at once familiar and most impressive to us in the received prose translation. And while they lack the interest of original poems, they are at the same time attended with peculiar difficulties in the execution, according to the testimony of all critics, and especially of authors who have tried their own skill upon them; so that in the result they are generally too imperfect, considered as poems alone, to allure the ear or the taste of a common reader. The book before us, however, will awaken a livelier interest in its subject, whereever it is known. We are not acquainted with any other work of the kind that is at once so extensive and so minute. The whole title, which we have given, fairly describes the author's design. In executing it he has shown the enthusiasm which alone could have moved him to such an undertaking, and evidently used much patient dil

igence. He must have disturbed venerable dust, thrusting his hand into many an unfrequented nook, poring over relics not before recognized as sainted, and gathering up the fragments of psalmody as scrupulously as a Mussulman is said to save every scrap of the Koran. His criticisms are generally candid and discriminating, though the style is not always as easy and simple as it might be; and he shows a liberality in his religious sympathies, such as we might expect from a friend of Montgomery, and such as in this quarter of the world we know how to appreciate.

It will be observed that in this compilation, a version is furnished for each of the one hundred and fifty Psalms. The exact number of writers thus commemorated,' is of course,' as the author says, 'an arbitrary affair,' suggested by the number of the Psalms themselves.

Some of the versifiers, for example, Burns and Byron, have not made so many attempts in this way, nor with any such marked success, as to deserve their place on his list, but are introduced rather for the splendor of their reputation, and for the oddity of their appearance in such company. It is not less surprising to find that Richard Cumberland, one of the most prolific writers of plays since the time of Shakespeare,' published versions of several Psalms, having rendered fifty into English metre;' but then he testifies of himself that he had 'written at different times as many sermons as would make a large volume, some of which have been delivered from the pulpits." Names

at once graver and greater than these, agree better with the themes, and better deserve the name here allowed them of psalmists. One out of several paraphrases by Lord Bacon is here given, and though ill suited for a choir, it is not unworthy of his powers. We extract two stanzas, on the first four verses of the 90th Psalm.

'O Lord, thou art our home, to whom we fly, And so hast always been from age to age:

Before the hills did intercept the eye,
Or that the frame was up of earthly stage,
One God thou wert, and art, and still shalt be;
The line of time it doth not measure Thee.

'Both death and life obey thy holy lore,

And visit in their turns as they are sent; A thousand years with Thee they are no more

Than yesterday, which ere it is, is spent: Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep, And goes and comes unwares to them that sleep.'

Milton too versified several Psalms which are often printed with his other poems. One of them, the

136th, though from obvious necessity altered for present use, is in many recent collections, beginning, 'Let us with a gladsome mind.' The roll of psalinists has encroached also on the Catalogue of Noble Authors.' Loyal theologians and poets have ever taken care to repeat the kingly title of the great Hebrew psalmist, and in some instances royal personages have themselves been provoked by his fame to emulate his genius as well as his prerogative. A version of one Psalm is ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, besides two little anthems, or things in metre ;' and James I. not only versified some of the Psalms in the collection that bore his name, but it would seem had a mind to claim more credit of this sort than was clearly his due, though neither his poetry nor his prerogative was able to supplant the old version. The same list is graced with female names illustrious for rank or accomplishments or piety, and some of them for all these distinctions, as in the case of Sir Phillip Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke.

Another class of authors the student of English literature loves to recognize here, in Sidney himself, Surrey, Phineas Fletcher, Herbert, Sir John Denham, and several of the older Scotch poets, among whom is William Alexander the Earl of Stirling, to whom James's version is said to have been largely indebted; with James Montgomery, also, of our own day. Devout readers will welcome too, in the same connection, the names of Bishop Hall, Richard Baxter, Cotton Mather, and Dwight. Most of these persons have done much and done well, all things considered, in this department of literary effort, showing their own love and reverence for the word of God, and cherishing the same dispositions in the readers of their own time, though without obtaining by this means, any consid. erable place in the devotions of Christian assemblies, nor in popular

esteem.

Most of the writers commemorated in this work have versified only certain Psalms selected for some reason from the whole number; sometimes preferring those of one class or kind, as the penitential Psalms, or the Psalms of degrees;' and sometimes apparently making an experiment on a few, without encouragement enough to attempt the rest. Yet we are surprised to find about seventy versions of the whole book here enumerated. Two or three of these have been wisely kept in manuscript, and no doubt others in the same condition have been happily overlooked by the compiler, if not destroyed by their authors. One is

* The earliest English metrical Psalms, by any known author, which the compiler has found, are the seven penitential Psalms,' ascribed to Brampton, A. D., 1414.

We could have informed the English compiler of at least one version of the entire Psalter, in the ordinary metres of church music, still in manuscript, the work of an American clergyman, and respects

conjecturally dated as early as the reign of Henry the Second, or Richard the First;' another bears date early in the fifteenth century; but nearly all are from the reign of Henry the Eighth onward, and they seem to have multiplied more in the last forty years than in any other period of the same length. Four entire versions are the work of American writers; or five, if Prince's revision be reckoned a new one, as the labor he bestowed on it might fairly claim. Mr. Holland does not appear to have seen the old New England version, the Bay Psalm Book,' prepared by Richard Mather, Weld and Elliot, and printed in 1640 at our Cambridge,' and soon after improved chiefly by President Dunster of Harvard College; though he gives some account of it from Prince. It was the first book printed in this country, and we are here informed of a singular coincidence with the facts that the earliest specimen of European typography extant, with a date, is also a Psalter, and moreover that the printer of the first complete metrical version of the Psalms in England, as in New England, was a Mr. Day.' Prince's laborious revision of that version, finished in 1756, is here particularly described and commended, and the specimen given as well as the use that was made of the book, justifies the compiler's judgment. Cotton Mather's Psalterium Americanum,' published in 1718, was all in blank verse,' but fitted unto the tunes commonly used in our churches; and notwithstanding his quaint disparagement of a similis desineutia, or a likeness of sound in the

bly executed. The author is British too in the same sense as some that are included in this compilation-writing the common British language. We could have informed him of another-an original version, if we remember rightly, of part of every Psalm-to be found in an American collection of Psalms and Hymns, which would have riveted his eye if he had seen it.

last syllables of the verse,' his work failed for the want of it, if for no other reason. Bartrum, who published a Paraphrase of the Psalms in 1833, in Boston, is called an 'American contributor to the stock' of psalmody, because he was educated here, though supposed to have been an Englishman by birth; but the most charitable thing to be said of his undertaking, is that the execution corresponded with the design, which was to substitute what is call ed poetical diction' for the more sacred scriptural phraseology. The book of Psalms, translated into English verse,' by Rev. George Burgess, of Hartford, Conn., we are pleased to see is fully and favorably noticed by our English compiler, who even goes so far as to prefer it, by implication, to another which was put forth about the same time, and of course under higher expectations, by Keble the author of the Christian Year.' 'The New England Metrist,' he thinks, has produced a version freer from palpable blemishes, and perhaps more nearly realizing the idea of what a metrical translation should be-or at least what it must bethan has been accomplished by almost any other individual.' The new Connecticut collection of Psalms and Hymns contains several pieces from Mr. Burgess's volume, among which we refer the reader especially to the 114th Psalm, second version, though two of his stanzas are there omitted.

In order that the labor employed and the success achieved in this department may be fairly estimated, it should be borne in mind that three of the four American versions, and many if not most of all the versions enumerated in the work before us, are not merely metrical renderings of our received prose translation of the Psalms, nor of that which is retained in the service of the English established church; but fresh translations out of the original tongue, and with the former translations dil

igently compared and revised.' In general the authors appear to have sought a more rigid adherence to their original, than the translators of classical poetry, ever remember. ing that they were consulting not fabulous legends, but oracles divinely as well as poetically inspired, whose exact utterance was therefore of infinite value. For this reason their work was at once the more responsible and the more arduous. Whoever reads the account which Thos. Prince gives of the method he employed in revising the old New England version, can not avoid feeling a profound respect for the man and for his book; and many other versifi. ers appear to have used creditable if not equal diligence. For the same reason works of this nature have not been justly appreciated, because the quality which their authors reckoned the highest merit-fidelity to their original-is not readily perceived by ordinary readers, who at the same time are repelled by the stiffness and constraint that disfigure almost all translation as compared with original composition, and especially such translation as is meant to be most faithful.

Of all the metrical versions of the whole Psalter, described by Mr. Holland, very few can be said to have met with any such success as their authors expected. Most of them are unknown to us except through his 'records.' Generally they failed, for very obvious reasons, if we only judge from the specimens he has given; such as uncouth phraseology, and unsuitable or defective struc ture. While better could be had, they were not needed for the purposes of Christian worship; and for other purposes, every reader, whether learned or unlearned, must prefer our noble prose translation, especial. ly when arranged, as it is now in many of our Bibles, in parallelisms.

Besides those versions that must be considered in every sense unsuccessful, and of little value now ex

6

cept to antiquarians or curious collectors, there are others of undeniable merit and high repute, which yet have never been employed, so far as we can learn, in the worship of Christian assemblies. Some of these indeed are partly in metres unfit for popular social use. We have already alluded to Sir Philip Sidney, and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, as among the British Psalmists.' It is not generally known that they composed one entire version of the Psalms, and it is indeed 'somewhat remarkable,' as the compiler says, or rather unaccountable, that no (printed) edition' of the whole made its appearance till 1823,' though the brother died in 1586. Their illustrious names give a fragrance of nobleness and worth to every thing connected with them. As some one has said, 'There is in truth something inexpressibly pleasing and interesting in picturing to ourselves this accomplished brother and sister, the beautiful, the brave, thus conjointly employed in the service of their God, thus emulously endeavoring to do justice to the imperishable strains of divine inspiration.' The work abounds, as its title promises, in the greatest variety of metres. More than two thirds of the whole are ascribed to the sister; and the specimen given in her name, which is the 119th Psalm, contains stanzas of as many different kinds as it has alphabetical portions. With much sweetness and delicacy of style, there is just enough of quaint ness in the composition to make it pleasant reading for the curious. For an example, taken at random, verses 17-20, of the 119th Psalm are thus rendered:

I wast and spill, While still I longing grieve,

Grieve, longing for thy judgments still.' Another version, first published in 1836, as the joint production of C. F. & E. C., which are interpreted to mean Catharine Foster and Elizabeth Colling, is of more than respectable poetical merit, but not fitted in most of its metres, nor indeed originally intended, for public worship.*

It is obvious that a miscellaneous assembly can not sing matter translated, according to the title of the Sidney version, into divers and sundry kinds of verse, more rare and excellent for the method and varietie than ever yet hath been done in English.' Yet of late years some metres have been advantageously used in psalmody, which were not once thought practicable; as the iambic 7s. and 6s. in Heber's missionary hymn, and also in some of Montgomery's versions, particularly that of the 72d Psalm, beginning Hail to the Lord's Anointed;' and the trochaic 7s. not used formerly, but now very common. And so far as versions are intended, as those of the Sidneys and several others were, to be read rather than sung, it is certain that the Psalms require, for their utmost effect in a poetical form, as great a variety of

measure and stanza as is found successful in other English poems. Some Psalms might warrant the use of English pentameters or the heroic couplet; the Spenserian stanza might occasionally be the most appropriate strain, and there are passages in which that of Campbell's Battle of the Baltic,' would best carry the Psalmist's vehement or exulting sentiment. The various forms of blank verse allow still

* In connection with these females, it may be mentioned that the work before us singles out Miss Margaret Patullo, whose work appeared in Edinburgh in 1828, as having been the only individual of her sex who single handed, has versified the whole book of Psalms.