He fosters me in fragrant meads,
By softly sliding waters leads
No terror can my courage quail
Though shaded in death's gloomy vale!
By thy protection fortified;

Thy staff my stay, thy rod my guide!
My table thou hast furnished,

Pour'd precious odours on my head;

My mazer [goblet] flows with pleasant wine;
While all my foes with envy pine.
Thy mercy and beneficence
Shall ever joyn in my defence;
Who in thy house will sacrifice
Till aged Time close up mine eyes.
GEORGE HERBERT.

The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed;
While he is mine and I am his,
What can I want or need?
He leads me to the tender grass
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently pass:
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, he doth convert

And bring my mind in frame!
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.

Yea, in Death's shady black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:

For thou art with me, and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.
Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine
Even in my enemies' sight;

My head with oil, my cup with wine,
Runs over day and night.
Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days;

And as it never shall remove,

So neither shall my praise.

SCOTCH CHURCH VERSION.

The Lord's my shepherd. I'll not want.
He makes me down to lie

In pastures green: he leadeth me

The quiet waters by.

My soul he doth restore again;

And me to walk doth make Within the paths of righteousness,

Even for his own name's sake.

Yea, though I walk in Death's dark vale,
Yet will I fear none ill;

For thou art with me; and thy rod
And staff me comfort still.
Goodness and mercy all my life
Shall surely follow me,

And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling place shall be.

ADDISON.

The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care;
His presence shall my wants supply,
And guard me with a watchful eye.
My noonday walks He will attend,
And all my midnight hours defend.
When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountain pant,
To fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary, wandering steps he leads,
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow
Though in the paths of death I tread,
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill,
For thou, O Lord, art with me still;
Thy friendly hand shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.

ISAAC WATTS.

My shepherd will supply my need,
Jehovah is his Name;

In pastures fresh he makes me feed
Beside the living stream.

He brings my wandering spirit back
When I forsake his ways,

And leads me for his mercies' sake

In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death,

Thy presence is my stay:

A word of thy supporting breath

Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand in spite of all my foes
Doth still my table spread;
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may thy house be mine abode,
And all my work be praise!

BATHURST.

Jesus, if thou my shepherd be
My soul no want shall know;
For in green fields thou leadest me
Where healing waters flow.
In paths of righteousness and peace
Thou causest me to tread !
And pourest, with a rich increase,
Thy blessings on my head.
Yea, though I pass the gloomy shade
Of death, I will not fear;

Thy staff shall guard me, and thine aid
My steadfast heart shall cheer.
Thy love, which makes my cup run o'er,
And soothes my burdened breast,
Shall guide me till I reach the shore
Of everlasting rest.

Before proceeding to indicate some of the chief sources from which alternative versions of the Psalms may be sought, a word or two on another matter not altogether irrelevant to the question at issue. One of the chief reasons for an endeavour to improve the Psalters in use, in this way or otherwise, is to be found in the wide-spread employment, in public worship, of words of praise not only inferior to the Psalms, but even sometimes positively objectionable. In a former number of this Journal' some account was given of the hymn-books of the Moravian Brethren; and "the profanity, indelicacy, and absurdity which abound in them" and which had been first brought before the world, forty years before, in Southey's Life of Wesley-are probably in that article sufficiently illustrated. For examples of unworthy and offensive devotional poetry, however, it is, unhappily, not necessary that we should go back to the Moravian hymn-books. In bad taste, in distortions and misrepresentations of divine truth, in irreverent familiarity with the most sacred topics and the most awful names, nothing can well exceed many hymns found in collections which are obtaining currency amongst ourselves at the present day. These collections are very numerous, and large editions of them seem to be sold freely. One of those before us is in its "three

& See Journal of Sacred Literature, for July, 1864.

hundredth thousand" edition. The price is very small, and makes them easily accessible to the poorest, and, therefore, the least educated and most impressible of the population. They have been introduced largely, often without suspicion, into Sunday schools, where they poison the religious sentiments and the religious belief of the next generation at the fountain head. And they are not only the unsuspected bane of simple persons of pious disposition and imperfect knowledge, but the occasion of making to others the whole subject of religion a scandal and an offence.

Even the peculiar sin of the Moravian hymns is not altogether without shocking representation in these popular collections. Thus a hymn of Dessler's, entitled "I thirst," forms one of the Rev. Mr. Gall's Hymns and Spiritual Songs. One or two verses will suffice: :

"I thirst, thou wounded Lamb of God,
To wash me in thy cleansing blood,
To dwell within thy wounds,-there pain
Is sweet, and life or death is gain
How blest are they who still abide

Close sheltered in thy bleeding side," etc.

The best protection, of course, from follies and impieties such as those to which we have purposely alluded in only the most general terms, is to be found in the substitution of a healthy literature in this department, as in others, for one which is morbid or pestilential. And there is in our language no lack of resources from whence to draw songs of praise, whether for public or private worship, which shall be found, in every way, worthy even of so sublime an exercise as that of shewing forth the praise and glory of God. We shall not at present say anything of the number of noble Hymns with which the English tongue is enriched, and of which so excellent a selection is to be found in the work of Sir Roundell Palmer already referred to, but shall confine our attention, as before proposed, to the Psalter itself.

It would be impossible to review, however cursorily, all the versions of the Psalms of David which are in print. Mr. John Holland published, a few years ago, "Notices, Biographical and Literary," of no fewer than one hundred and fifty" authors who have rendered the whole, or parts, of the Book of Psalms into English verse;" and he has not, by any means, exhausted the number. They are men of all ranks and conditions; but it is curious to notice how few names otherwise known to fame for poetical genius are to be found in the list. John Milton cer

tainly translated some Psalms into English verse; and one, at least, of these-the first Psalm-with a felicity not unworthy of the author of the sonnets "On his Blindness," and on "The Massacre at Piedmont" (both of them among the noblest of original hymns); and even Robert Burns and Lord Byron versified a few; as did Addison, William Cowper, and others. But these names acquire no fresh lustre from their labours in this field; and the most successful translators of the old liturgic hymns of the Tabernacle and the Temple have not been drawn from the ranks of professed poets. Is it that devotional poetry does not require, nor give scope to, the same powers as madrigals and canzonets, or even tragedy and "the lofty epic;" and that moral qualifications are alone needed; so that the only "Fineness which a hymn or psalm affords,

Is when the soul unto the lines accords?"

We think not. Doubtless the best Psalms and hymns are also the most poetical. It is not because the poetical faculty is not required nor available, but because it is not of itself sufficient, that poets have rarely been successful in what might appear the loftiest of all themes for their muse, and that men less conspicuous, and even of humbler powers, but more devout, have taken that place which the others have thus left unoccupied.

The first version we shall mention as affording some materials for enriching our English Psalter, is the "Old Version," or that of Sternhold and Hopkins. Though not the first collection used in England, it dates from a very early period in the history of the English Reformation. The nucleus of it was formed, in the year 1549, by the publication of thirty-seven of the Psalms, "drawen into English metre" by Thomas Sternhold, a Groom of the Chamber to Henry VIII. Sternhold died the same year that his fragmentary work saw the light; but the other Psalms were gradually added-the greater number by John Hopkins, a clergyman of Suffolk, who also edited and revised the complete collection. It was first printed as a whole, at the end of the Book of Common Prayer, in the year 1562. The early editions contained a selection of "apt notes to sing them withal," besides metrical versions of such ancient hymns as the Veni Creator, (seldom more happily rendered), the Te Deum, the Song of the Three Children, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis.

It requires some courage, perhaps, to say a single word in favour of anything contained in this version of the Psalms, which though for a considerable period not only in universal use